Investigation of Surface Urban Heat Island by High-Rise Buildings: Istanbul Levent Region

Abstract

Although there are studies on urban climate, studies on the effects of skyscrapers in these areas are quite limited. This study aims to determine the impact of skyscrapers on the formation of surface urban heat islands (SUHIs). Accordingly, an area within a radius of one kilometer, centered on the skyscraper region in Levent, Istanbul, was selected as the study area. This area was chosen because it shows three different urban textures. Daytime land surface temperature (LST) maps were created from Landsat TM 5 images from 1990 and 2009, and Landsat 8 (OLI-TIRS) images from 2021. Then, the differences in LST between the three years were calculated to investigate the changes in LST in different urban textures. The results of the study show a low increase in LST in the skyscraper area (2.7 °C) when looking at the 1990-2021 LST difference, while an increase in LST is observed toward the region where construction is low in density (6.9 °C) and the area with unplanned development (10.1 °C). The factors causing the formation of SUHI in different urban textures will be discussed with the findings of this study.