Predicting the impacts of urban development on urban thermal environment using machine learning algorithms in Nanjing, China.

The urban thermal environment undergoes significant influences from changes in land use/land cover (LULC). This article uses CA-ANN and ANN algorithms to forecast LULC and changes in the urban thermal environment in Nanjing for the years 2030 and 2040. It investigates the interplay between LULC changes, land surface temperature (LST), and the urban thermal field variance index (UTFVI). The findings reveal that urban land exhibited a significant expansion trend from 2000 to 2019, reaching 1083.43 km2 in 2019. The forecast indicates that urban land may increase by 8.79% and 10.92% by 2030 and 2040, respectively. Conversely, vegetation and bare land may decrease. The LST is likely to continue to rise, accompanied by a significant expansion of the high temperature range and a contraction of the low temperature range. By 2030 and 2040, the area with LST<20 °C is likely to decrease by 2.17% and 3.19%, while the area with LST>30 °C is likely to expand by 5.68% and 8.08%, respectively. The UTFVI area of urban land may decrease at none and middle levels but may notably expand at stronger and strongest levels. The areas with UTFVI at none, weak, and middle levels show a declining trend, while the increase in UTFVI at the strong level may exceed 46.29% and the strongest level of UTFVI may continue to expand. This study offers new insights into urban sustainable development and thermal environment governance.

Zhang M ，Tan S ，Liang J ，Zhang C ，Chen E ... -  《-》

Quantitative assessment of land surface temperature and vegetation indices on a kilometer grid scale.

Due to expanding populations and thriving economies, studies into the built environment's thermal characteristics have increased. This research tracks and predicts how land use and land cover (LULC) changes may affect ground temperatures, urban heat islands, and city thermal fields (UTFVI). The current study examines land surface temperature (LST), urban thermal field variance index (UTFVI), normalized difference built-up index (NDBI), normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), and land use land cover (LULC) on a kilometer scale. According to the comparative study, the mean LST decreases by 3 °C and the NDVI increases considerably. Correlation analysis showed that LST and NDVI are inversely connected, while LST and NDBI are positively correlated. NDVI and NDBI have a strong negative association, while LST and UTFVI have a positive correlation. Urban planners and environmentalists can study the LST's effects on land surface parameters in different environmental contexts during the lockout period. The urban heat island (UHI) phenomenon, in which the land surface qualities of an urban region cause a change in the urban thermal environment, forms and intensifies over an urban area. The minimum and maximum LST in grid number 1 in 2009 was 20.30 °C and 29.91 °C, respectively, with a mean LST of 25.1 °C. There was a decline in the minimum and maximum LST in grid number 1 in 2020 with a minimum and maximum LST of 17.31 °C and 25.35 °C, respectively, with a mean LST of 21.33 °C. There was a 3.8 °C drop in the LST of this grid. The minimum and maximum NDVI were also - 0.16 and 0.59, respectively, with an average NDVI value of 0.21. Therefore, it is essential to evaluate and foresee the impact of LULC change on the thermal environment and examines the connection between LULC shifts with subsequent changes in land surface temperature (LST) along with the UHI phenomenon. Maps of the UTFVI reveal positive UHI phenomena, with the highest UTFVI zones occurring over the developed area and none over the adjacent rural territory. During the summer months, the urban area with the strongest UTFVI zone grows noticeably larger than it does during the winter months during the forecasted years. Future policymakers and city planners can mitigate the effects of heat stress and create more sustainable urban environments by evaluating the expected distribution maps of LULC, LST, UHI, and UTFVI.

Kikon N ，Kumar D ，Ahmed SA 《-》

Unveiling the Dynamics of Thermal Characteristics Related to LULC Changes via ANN.

Khachoo YH ，Cutugno M ，Robustelli U ，Pugliano G ... -  《SENSORS》

Change detection in a rural landscape: A case study of processes and main driving factors along with its response to thermal environment in Farim, Iran.

This study aims to investigate the alteration of Land Use/Land Cover (LULC) change and its response to changes in land surface temperature (LST) and heat island phenomena of a rural district known as Farim in the north of Iran from 1990 to 2020 using multi-date Landsat data. The random forest-based algorithm, supported by Google Earth Engine, is used to execute the LULC classification with an overall accuracy of more than 92%. Based on the LULC results, in terms of area changes, the classes of bare land, rice fields, and water bodies encountered an increase, but woods and dry farms decreased. The present study also incorporates the trends of land cover change that are analyzed using regression based on the temporal datasets of the three leading driving factors: temperature, precipitation, and population. The result demonstrates that the main changing factors of the mostly changed class (bare land) are population/precipitation and temperature/population. Additionally, the effect of LULC change on seasonal LST and urban heat island (UHI) is also analyzed in this study. The result witnessed a significant LST rise in the summer and winter seasons of about 12.87 °C and 14.2 °C, respectively over the study period. The Urban Thermal Field Variance Index (UTFVI), characterizing the heat island phenomenon, shows that the strongest UTFVI zone is in the central area and the none UTFVI zone is in the surrounding region. Moreover, both seasons have seen a significant rise in none UTFVI zones compared to decreasing strongest UTFVI zone. The result of the present study will be helpful for urban planners and climate researchers who study future land cover change and its associated driving factors.

Mahdavi Estalkhsari B ，Mohammad P ，Razavi N 《-》

Assessing the land use dynamics and thermal environment using geospatial techniques in the industrial city of Chotanagpur Plateau Region, India.

The phenomenon of urban heat island (UHI) is characterized by industrial, economic development, unplanned and unregulated land use as well as a rapid increase in urban population, resulting a warmer inner core in contrast to the surrounding natural environment, thus requiring immediate attention for a sustainable urban environment. This study examined the land use/land cover (LULC) change, pattern of spectral indices (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, NDVI; Normalized Difference Water Index, NDWI; Normalized Difference Built-up Index, NDBI and Normalized Difference Bareness Index, NDBaI), retrieval of land surface temperature (LST) and Urban Thermal Field Variance Index (UTFVI) as well as identification of UHI from 2000 to 2022. The relationship among LST and LULC spectral indices was estimated using Pearson's correlation coefficient. The Landsat-5 (TM) and Landsat-8 (OLI/TIRS) satellite data have been used, and all tasks were completed through various geospatial tools like ArcGIS 10.8, Google Earth Engine (GEE), Erdas Imagine 2014 and R-Programming. The result of this study depicts over the period that built-up area and water bodies increased by 119.78 and 35.70%, respectively. On the contrary, fallow and barren decreased by 55.33 and 32.31% respectively over the period. The mean and maximum LST increased by 3.61 °C and 2.62 °C, and the study reveals that a high concentration of UTFVI and UHI in industrial areas, coal mining sites and their surroundings, but the core urban area has observed low LST and intensity of UHI than the peripheral areas due to maintained vegetation cover and water bodies. An inverse relationship has been found among LST, NDVI and NDWI, while adverse relationships were observed among LST, NDBI and NDBaI throughout the period. Sustainable environment planning is needful for the urban area, as well as the periphery region and plantation is one of the controlling measures of LST and UHI increment. This work provides the scientific base for the study of the thermal environment which can be one of the variables for planning of Asansol City and likewise other cities of the country as well as the world.

Banerjee B ，Pal A ，Tiwari AK ，Kanchan R ... -  《-》