Abstract
The increasing degree of urbanization has continuously aggravated the surface urban heat island (sUHI) effect in China. To investigate the correlation between spatiotemporal changes of sUHI and urbanization in Beijing, land surface temperature in summer from 2000 to 2017 and the distribution of local climate zones (LCZs) in 2003, 2005, 2010, and 2017 was retrieved using remote sensing data and used to analyze the sUHI area and intensity change. The statistical method GeoDetector was utilized to investigate the explanatory ability of LCZs and population as the driving factors. The year of 2006 was identified as the main turning year for sUHI evolution. The variation the sUHI from 2000 showed first an increasing trend, and then a decreasing one. The sUHI pattern changed before and after 2009. Before 2009, the sUHI mainly increased in the suburbs, and then, the enhancement area moved to the central area. The sUHI intensity change under different LCZ conversion conditions showed that the LCZ conversion influences the sUHI intensity significantly. Based on population distribution data, we found that the relationship between population density and sUHI gets weaker with increasing population density. The result of GeoDetector indicated that the LCZ is the main factor influencing the sUHI, but population density is an important auxiliary factor. This research reveals the sUHI variation pattern in Beijing from 2000 and could help city managers plan thermally comfortable urban environments with a better understanding of the effect of urban spatial form and population density on sUHIs.
Highlights
Since the 1950s, the speed of global urbanization has increased significantly, accompanied by an increasing transformation of the natural landscape into human living areas [1]
After 2009, the increased area of surface urban heat island (sUHI) moved to the central urban area, and a large sUHI declining area appeared outside the 4th Ring Road
local climate zones (LCZs) conversion was the main factor leading to the sUHI intensity change
Summary
Since the 1950s, the speed of global urbanization has increased significantly, accompanied by an increasing transformation of the natural landscape into human living areas [1]. By 2030, the global urban area is predicted to increase by 1.2 million km. With the constant large number of people moving to urban areas, building density and human activity intensity increases [7,8]. The UHI effect refers to a phenomenon where the temperature in urban areas is higher than the surrounding suburban areas [10,11]. Some studies have demonstrated that the UHI effect has been increasing with the development of urbanization [12,13,14,15]
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