Abstract
Urban building morphology has a significant impact on the urban thermal environment (UTE). The sky view factor (SVF) is an important structure index of buildings and combines height and density attributes. These factors have impact on the land surface temperature (LST). Thus, it is crucial to analyze the relationship between SVF and LST in different spatial-temporal scales. Therefore, we tried to use a building vector database to calculate the SVF, and we used remote sensing thermal infrared band to retrieve LST. Then, we analyzed the influence between SVF and LST in different spatial and temporal scales, and we analyzed the seasonal variation, day–night variation, and the impact of building height and density of the SVF–LST relationship. We selected the core built-up area of Beijing as the study area and analyzed the SVF–LST relationship in four periods in 2018. The temporal experimental results indicated that LST is higher in the obscured areas than in the open areas at nighttime. In winter, the maximum mean LST is in the open areas. The spatial experimental results indicate that the SVF and LST relationship is different in the low SVF region, with 30 m and 90 m pixel scale in the daytime. This may be the shadow cooling effect around the buildings. In addition, we discussed the effects of building height and shading on the SVF–LST relationship, and the experimental results show that the average shading ratio is the largest at 0.38 in the mid-rise building area in winter.
Highlights
Rapid urbanization has resulted in increased urban population density, urban expansion, and the conversion of a large number of natural surfaces to artificial surfaces and buildings
The building floor attributes of the building vector data were rasterized, the raster data were resampled to 30 m resolution, and the continuous sky view factor (SVF) results extracted by Relief Visualization Toolbox (RVT)
We found that the SVF–land surface temperature (LST) relationship is significantly different in daytime and nighttime
Summary
Rapid urbanization has resulted in increased urban population density, urban expansion, and the conversion of a large number of natural surfaces to artificial surfaces and buildings. The increases of impervious surfaces and building walls and the decrease of vegetation cover affect the urban thermal environment [1,2]. Residents that have lived in urban centers for a long time feel the increased effects of the surface urban heat island, which makes people feel physically and psychologically uncomfortable and affects the comfort level and quality of life of an urban living environment [3,4]. The study of its influencing factors and mechanisms is important in order to propose a scientific and reasonable strategy to alleviate the urban thermal environment [5,6]. Urban building morphology is an important influencing factor of an urban thermal environment. Most research exploring the influence of building morphology on an urban thermal environment used the two-dimensional and three-dimensional characteristics of buildings [7,8,9]
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