Abstract
The rapid increase in urbanization due to population growth leads to the degradation of vegetation in major cities. This study investigated the spatial patterns of the ecoenvironmental conditions of inhabitants of two distinct Asian capital cities, Beijing of China and Islamabad of Pakistan, by utilizing Earth observation data products. The significance of urban vegetation for the cooling effect was studied in local climate zones, i.e., urban, suburban, and rural areas within 1-km2 quantiles. Landsat-8 (OLI) and Gaofen-1 satellite imagery were used to assess vegetation cover and land surface temperature, while population datasets were used to evaluate environmental impact. Comparatively, a higher cooling effect of vegetation presence was observed in rural and suburban zones of Beijing as compared to Islamabad, while the urban zone of Islamabad was found comparatively cooler than Beijing’s urban zone. The urban thermal field variance index calculated from satellite imagery was ranked into the ecological evaluation index. The worst ecoenvironmental conditions were found in urban zones of both cities where the fraction of vegetation is very low. Meanwhile, this condition is more serious in Beijing, as more than 90% of the total population is living under the worst ecoenvironment conditions, while only 7% of the population is enjoying comfortable conditions. Ecoenvironmental conditions of Islamabad are comparatively better than Beijing where ∼61% of the total population live under the worst ecoenvironmental conditions, and ∼24% are living under good conditions. Thus, Islamabad at this early growth stage can learn from Beijing’s ecoenvironmental conditions to improve the quality of living by controlling the associated factors in the future.
Highlights
Intense urbanization due to population growth and the increase in anthropogenic activities has transformed the world’s landscapes and urban ecosystem rather actively in the last few decades
The satellite remote sensing data-based local climate zones (LCZ) provided the basis to compare the cooling effect of vegetation to study the ecoenvironmental condition of two cities
The high spatial resolution EOsupported datasets proved to be very effective for studying urban thermal environments, ecoenvironmental conditions, and indicators for the quality of living in rapidly growing cities
Summary
Intense urbanization due to population growth and the increase in anthropogenic activities has transformed the world’s landscapes and urban ecosystem rather actively in the last few decades. Increasing trends in industrialization and urbanization are the extreme factors that are influencing the land surface transformation.[1] Urbanization is the major activity that is contributing dynamically to change the land use/land cover (LULC),[2,3,4] modifying the energy balance and making the city areas warmer than the rural areas. The activity of the replacement of the natural vegetation area into buildings at a fast rate is threatening. This is because of the usage of low Journal of Applied Remote Sensing
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
