Neighborhood Landscape Spatial Patterns and Land Surface Temperature: An Empirical Study on Single-Family Residential Areas in Austin, Texas

Jun-Hyun Kim, Donghwan Gu, Wonmin Sohn, Sung-Ho Kil, Hwanyong Kim and Dong-Kun Lee
Additional contact information
Jun-Hyun Kim: Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning, Texas A&M University, A318A Langford Architecture Center, 3137 TAMU, College Station, TX 77843-3137, USA
Donghwan Gu: Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning, Texas A&M University, A318A Langford Architecture Center, 3137 TAMU, College Station, TX 77843-3137, USA
Wonmin Sohn: Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning, Texas A&M University, A318A Langford Architecture Center, 3137 TAMU, College Station, TX 77843-3137, USA
Sung-Ho Kil: Department of Ecological Landscape Architecture Design, Kangwon National University, Chuncheon 24341, Korea
Hwanyong Kim: Division of Architecture & Urban Design, Incheon National University, Incheon 406-772, Korea
Dong-Kun Lee: Department of Landscape Architecture, Seoul National University, Seoul 151-921, Korea

IJERPH, 2016, vol. 13, issue 9, 1-15

Abstract: Rapid urbanization has accelerated land use and land cover changes, and generated the urban heat island effect (UHI). Previous studies have reported positive effects of neighborhood landscapes on mitigating urban surface temperatures. However, the influence of neighborhood landscape spatial patterns on enhancing cooling effects has not yet been fully investigated. The main objective of this study was to assess the relationships between neighborhood landscape spatial patterns and land surface temperatures (LST) by using multi-regression models considering spatial autocorrelation issues. To measure the influence of neighborhood landscape spatial patterns on LST, this study analyzed neighborhood environments of 15,862 single-family houses in Austin, Texas, USA. Using aerial photos, geographic information systems (GIS), and remote sensing, FRAGSTATS was employed to calculate values of several landscape indices used to measure neighborhood landscape spatial patterns. After controlling for the spatial autocorrelation effect, results showed that larger and better-connected landscape spatial patterns were positively correlated with lower LST values in neighborhoods, while more fragmented and isolated neighborhood landscape patterns were negatively related to the reduction of LST.

Keywords: urban heat island effect; green spaces; land surface temperature; GIS; landscape indices; spatial autocorrelation; FRAGSTATS (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/13/9/880/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/13/9/880/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:13:y:2016:i:9:p:880-:d:77340

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().