Abstract
The impacts of anthropogenic land use and land cover (LULC) changes on the spatiotemporal distribution of precipitation in megacities have been highlighted in studies on urban climate change. In this study, we conducted a quantitative analysis of urban growth on the impact on precipitation in Shanghai, China. We considered four periods of LULC data in 1979, 1990, 2000 and 2010, in addition to the long-term (1979–2010) trend of daily precipitation. The results indicate that the trend in precipitation exhibit different characteristics for urban (Ur), outskirt of urban (OUr) and outer suburb (OS) regions. Most Ur regions had an upward trend in annual and extreme precipitation during 1979–2010, while annual precipitation for the OUr and OS regions exhibited a decreasing trend. From 1979 to 2010, the areas of fastest expansion were located in the OUr region. The OS region, far away from the central area, had a relatively lower rate of change. In addition, OUr regions with rapid LULC changes exhibited higher increasing trends in annual and daily extreme precipitation, which is critical for the identification of frequent precipitation areas and the reliable projection of further changes.
Highlights
It was reported in the World Urbanization Prospects that more than 54% of the global population currently lives in cities, and this percentage is projected to reach 66% by 2050 [1]
We analyzed Landsat satellite images for 1979, 1990, 2000 and 2010, in addition to rain gauge-based daily precipitation observations from January 1979 to December 2010 in Shanghai to investigate the effects of land use and land cover (LULC) changes on precipitation
Most urban area (Ur) regions had an upward trend in terms of annual and extreme precipitation from 1979 to 2010
Summary
It was reported in the World Urbanization Prospects that more than 54% of the global population currently lives in cities, and this percentage is projected to reach 66% by 2050 [1]. Concentration Pathway (RCP) 2.6 scenario, which introduces additional challenges for cities with respect to coping with climate change and its impact [2,3]. Under the influence of anthropogenic factors, cities are very sensitive and vulnerable to heavy rainstorms [4,5], floods [6,7], heat waves [8] and other weather-related hazards that are likely to be exacerbated by climate change [9,10]. In megacities have raised great concerns with regard to their impact on urban precipitation [11,12,13].
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