Land surface temperature variations and their relationship to fractional vegetation coverage in subtropical regions: A case study in Fujian Province, China

Abstract

ABSTRACTModerate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Land Surface Temperature (LST) data of MODIS 11A2 and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) products of MODIS 13Q1 were used to analyse the spatial and temporal changes of LST and its relationship with vegetation from 2001 to 2015 in the subtropical region of Fujian Province, China. The LST and NDVI products were reconstructed by Savitzky–Golay (S-G) filtering for abnormal values or missing data due to the influence of cloud contamination. The LST of Fujian decreases from its southeast coast to its northwest mountain area, and the annual average highest LST is greater than 30°C while the lowest LST is about 15°C. In the past 15 years, the average LST in Fujian has declined gradually due to an increase in fractional vegetation coverage (FVC), but the highest LST increased from 30.95°C to 33.05°C across south-east coastal zone cities due to rapid urbanization. From 2001 to 2015, the LST of Fujian Province trended slightly downward; the LST area, however, significantly decreased by 18.85% of the total area of the province and was twice that of the (significant) increase in LST. The changing trend distributions of LST are opposite to those of FVC in general, but LST decreases to greater extent as FVC increases when FVC is above 0.2 – every 10% increase in FVC is accompanied by about a 1.1°C decrease in LST.