Impact of the Zhalong Wetland on Neighboring Land Surface Temperature Based on Remote Sensing and GIS

Abstract

Wetlands play a key role in regulating local climate as well as reducing impacts caused by climate change. Rapid observations of the land surface temperature (LST) are, therefore, valuable for studying the dynamics of wetland systems. With the development of thermal remote sensing technology, LST retrieval with satellite images is a practicable way to detect a wetland and its neighboring area’s thermal environment from a non-point visual angle rather than the traditional detection from a point visual angle. The mono-windows (MW) method of retrieving LST was validated. On the basis of estimated LST, we used Geographical Information System (GIS) technology to study the impact of wetland reclamation on local temperatures at a regional scale. Following that, correlations between LST and the wetland were analyzed. The results show that: 1) It is feasible to retrieve the LST from Landsat 8 OLI satellite images with MW model. The model was validated with the land surface temperature observed in four meteorological stations when the satellite scanned the study region. The satellite retrieval error was approximately 1.01°C. 2) The relationship between the spatial distribution of land surface temperatures and the Zhalong wetland was analyzed based on GIS technology. The results show that wetland has an obvious influence on LST, and that this influence decreases with increasing distance from the wetland. When the distance from the wetland was less than 500 m, its influence on LST was significant. Results also illustrated that the effect of the wetland’s different land use/land cover’s LST distribution varied with different seasons.