Long-Term Evolution of the SUHI Footprint and Urban Expansion Based on a Temperature Attenuation Curve in the Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration

Fei Tao, Yuchen Hu, Guoan Tang and Tong Zhou
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Fei Tao: School of Geography, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210023, China
Yuchen Hu: School of Geography, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210023, China
Guoan Tang: School of Geography, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210023, China
Tong Zhou: School of Geographical Sciences, Nantong University, Nantong 226007, China

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 15, 1-17

Abstract: The rapid growth of urbanization and population has aggravated the urban heat island (UHI) effect in urban agglomerations. However, because scholars have so far focused mainly on the magnitude of the UHI effect, there is still a lack of research on the quantitative evaluation of the relationship between urban expansion and the degree of the UHI effect from the urban agglomeration perspective. This paper analyzed the spatiotemporal characteristics and the interactive mechanism of the surface urban heat island footprint (SUHI FP) in the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration (YRDUA). The summer footprints (FPs) of 27 cities were extracted using a logistics model, and the temporal trend was estimated by a standard deviation ellipse (SDE). Furthermore, the authors used the classical machine-learning k-means algorithm to cluster the temperature attenuation curves to reveal development patterns in different cities. The results showed that the degree of FP expansion during the daytime was more apparent than at night, the area of urban growth positively correlated with a city’s population level, and from 2005 to 2018 (the period of the study), the spatial evolution for all cities showed an overall trend from east to west. These cities were divided roughly into three development patterns by clustering their 2018 temperature attenuation curves. These findings can provide a scientific basis for formulating effective land-use policies by giving a deeper understanding of the spatiotemporal changes in the SUHI FPs and their relationship with land cover in the YRDUA.

Keywords: urban heat island; footprint; logistics model; machine learning; attenuation curve; Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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