The Impact of Urbanization on Extreme Climate Indices in the Yangtze River Economic Belt, China

Wentao Yang (), Yining Yan, Zhibin Lin, Yijiang Zhao, Chaokui Li, Xinchang Zhang and Liang Shan
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Wentao Yang: National-Local Joint Engineering Laboratory of Geospatial Information Technology, Hunan University of Science and Technology, Xiangtan 411100, China
Yining Yan: National-Local Joint Engineering Laboratory of Geospatial Information Technology, Hunan University of Science and Technology, Xiangtan 411100, China
Zhibin Lin: Department of Geographical Information Science, Hunan University of Science and Technology, Xiangtan 411100, China
Yijiang Zhao: Department of Computer Science, Hunan University of Science and Technology, Xiangtan 411100, China
Chaokui Li: National-Local Joint Engineering Laboratory of Geospatial Information Technology, Hunan University of Science and Technology, Xiangtan 411100, China
Xinchang Zhang: Department of Geographical Information Science, Guangzhou University, Guangzhou 510006, China
Liang Shan: Guangzhou Zengdian Institute of Science and Technology, Guangzhou 511300, China

Land, 2022, vol. 11, issue 9, 1-16

Abstract: Urbanization has been proven to be a critical factor in modifying local or regional climate characteristics. This research aims to examine the impact of urbanization on extreme climate indices in the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB), China, by using meteorological observation data from 2000 to 2019. Three main steps are involved. First, a clustered threshold method based on remote-sensing nighttime light data is used to extract urban built-up areas, and urban and rural meteorological stations can be identified based on the boundary of urban built-up areas. Nonparametric statistical tests, namely, the Mann–Kendall test and Sen’s slope, are then applied to measure the trend characteristics of extreme climate indices. Finally, the urbanization contribution rate is employed to quantify the impact of urbanization on extreme climate indices. The results indicate that urbanization has a more serious impact on extreme temperature indices than on extreme precipitation indices in the YREB. For extreme temperature indices, urbanization generally causes more (less) frequent occurrence of warm (cold) events. The impact of urbanization on different extreme temperature indices has heterogeneous characteristics, including the difference in contamination levels and spatial variation of the impacted cities. For extreme precipitation indices, only a few cities impacted by urbanization are detected, but among these cities, urbanization contributes to increasing the trend of all indices.

Keywords: extreme climate events; YREB; remote-sensing nighttime light data; trend analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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