Abstract
Green coverage has pronounced influences on urban heat island (UHI) effect, while the impacts of seasonal variation and Land-Use/Land-Cover (LULC) types on this effect has not been implemented. This paper investigated the spatio-seasonal characteristics of urban thermal environment and the vegetation-soil mixed area, and then explored the effects of vegetation status on UHI intensity from the perspectives of seasons and regions in Xi’an using four Landsat 8 images. UHI intensity index was implemented to extract UHI intensity based on thermal infrared imagery, and difference vegetation index (DVI) was used to represent vegetation-soil mixed area. Results indicated that DVI has impacts on UHI intensity, and their relations vary with season and region. In the whole Xi’an, if UHI intensity is smaller than -0.1, DVI increases with the increase of UHI intensity; whereas for UHI intensity is greater than -0.1, DVI decreases with increases of the UHI intensity from early spring to autumn. The highest correlation level was discovered in the autumn map (R2=0.713). Results of correlation analysis further displayed that DVI positively correlated with UHI intensity at impervious surface, and that the main urban area possessed the best correlation with R2=0.564 5.
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Foundation item: Supported by the Natural Science Basic Research Plan in Shaanxi Province of China (2017JM4035)
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Zhao, W., Zhu, X., Jiang, G. et al. Seasonal Variation and Land-Use/Land-Cover Type Impacts on the Correlation of Urban Heat Island Intensity and Difference Vegetation Index with Satellite Data in Xi’an, China. Wuhan Univ. J. Nat. Sci. 23, 387–395 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11859-018-1338-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11859-018-1338-6
Key words
- urban heat island (UHI)
- difference vegetation index (DVI)
- spatial and seasonal variation
- correlation analysis
- Xi’an