Skip to main content

Lund University Publications

LUND UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

Spatial and Temporal Analysis of Surface Urban Heat Island and Thermal Comfort Using Landsat Satellite Images between 1989 and 2019: A Case Study in Tehran

Najafzadeh, Faezeh ; Mohammadzadeh, Ali ; Ghorbanian, Arsalan and Jamali, Sadegh LU orcid (2021) In Remote Sensing 13(21).
Abstract
Mapping and monitoring the spatio-temporal variations of the Surface Urban Heat Island (SUHI) and thermal comfort of metropolitan areas are vital to obtaining the necessary information about the environmental conditions and promoting sustainable cities. As the most populated city of Iran, Tehran has experienced considerable population growth and Land Cover/Land Use (LULC) changes in the last decades, which resulted in several adverse environmental issues. In this study, 68 Landsat-5 and Landsat-8 images, collected from the Google Earth Engine (GEE), were employed to map and monitor the spatio-temporal variations of LULC, SUHI, and thermal comfort of Tehran between 1989 and 2019. In this regard, planar fitting and Gaussian Surface Model... (More)
Mapping and monitoring the spatio-temporal variations of the Surface Urban Heat Island (SUHI) and thermal comfort of metropolitan areas are vital to obtaining the necessary information about the environmental conditions and promoting sustainable cities. As the most populated city of Iran, Tehran has experienced considerable population growth and Land Cover/Land Use (LULC) changes in the last decades, which resulted in several adverse environmental issues. In this study, 68 Landsat-5 and Landsat-8 images, collected from the Google Earth Engine (GEE), were employed to map and monitor the spatio-temporal variations of LULC, SUHI, and thermal comfort of Tehran between 1989 and 2019. In this regard, planar fitting and Gaussian Surface Model (GSM) approaches were employed to map SUHIs and derive the relevant statistical values. Likewise, the thermal comfort of the city was investigated by the Urban Thermal Field Variance Index (UTFVI). The results indicated that the SUHI intensities have generally increased throughout the city by an average value of about 2.02 °C in the past three decades. The most common reasons for this unfavorable increase were the loss of vegetation cover (i.e., 34.72%) and massive urban expansions (i.e., 53.33%). Additionally, the intra-annual investigations in 2019 revealed that summer and winter, with respectively 8.28 °C and 4.37 °C, had the highest and lowest SUHI magnitudes. Furthermore, the decadal UTFVI maps revealed notable thermal comfort degradation of Tehran, by which in 2019, approximately 52.35% of the city was identified as the region with the worst environmental condition, of which 59.94% was related to human residents. Additionally, the relationships between various air pollutants and SUHI intensities were appraised, suggesting positive relationships (i.e., ranging between 0.23 and 0.43) that can be used for establishing possible two-way mitigations strategies. This study provided analyses of spatio-temporal monitoring of SUHI and UTFVI throughout Tehran that urban managers and policymakers can consider for adaption and sustainable development. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
; ; and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
in
Remote Sensing
volume
13
issue
21
pages
25 pages
publisher
MDPI AG
external identifiers
  • scopus:85119159129
ISSN
2072-4292
DOI
10.3390/rs13214469
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
c64e50e3-8f52-4e75-a9f8-34c98922f6b8
date added to LUP
2021-11-09 11:24:44
date last changed
2022-06-29 08:08:40
@article{c64e50e3-8f52-4e75-a9f8-34c98922f6b8,
  abstract     = {{Mapping and monitoring the spatio-temporal variations of the Surface Urban Heat Island (SUHI) and thermal comfort of metropolitan areas are vital to obtaining the necessary information about the environmental conditions and promoting sustainable cities. As the most populated city of Iran, Tehran has experienced considerable population growth and Land Cover/Land Use (LULC) changes in the last decades, which resulted in several adverse environmental issues. In this study, 68 Landsat-5 and Landsat-8 images, collected from the Google Earth Engine (GEE), were employed to map and monitor the spatio-temporal variations of LULC, SUHI, and thermal comfort of Tehran between 1989 and 2019. In this regard, planar fitting and Gaussian Surface Model (GSM) approaches were employed to map SUHIs and derive the relevant statistical values. Likewise, the thermal comfort of the city was investigated by the Urban Thermal Field Variance Index (UTFVI). The results indicated that the SUHI intensities have generally increased throughout the city by an average value of about 2.02 °C in the past three decades. The most common reasons for this unfavorable increase were the loss of vegetation cover (i.e., 34.72%) and massive urban expansions (i.e., 53.33%). Additionally, the intra-annual investigations in 2019 revealed that summer and winter, with respectively 8.28 °C and 4.37 °C, had the highest and lowest SUHI magnitudes. Furthermore, the decadal UTFVI maps revealed notable thermal comfort degradation of Tehran, by which in 2019, approximately 52.35% of the city was identified as the region with the worst environmental condition, of which 59.94% was related to human residents. Additionally, the relationships between various air pollutants and SUHI intensities were appraised, suggesting positive relationships (i.e., ranging between 0.23 and 0.43) that can be used for establishing possible two-way mitigations strategies. This study provided analyses of spatio-temporal monitoring of SUHI and UTFVI throughout Tehran that urban managers and policymakers can consider for adaption and sustainable development.}},
  author       = {{Najafzadeh, Faezeh and Mohammadzadeh, Ali and Ghorbanian, Arsalan and Jamali, Sadegh}},
  issn         = {{2072-4292}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{11}},
  number       = {{21}},
  publisher    = {{MDPI AG}},
  series       = {{Remote Sensing}},
  title        = {{Spatial and Temporal Analysis of Surface Urban Heat Island and Thermal Comfort Using Landsat Satellite Images between 1989 and 2019: A Case Study in Tehran}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rs13214469}},
  doi          = {{10.3390/rs13214469}},
  volume       = {{13}},
  year         = {{2021}},
}