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Remote Sensing of the Responses of Climate of Urban and Anthropized Areas to Land Use and Land Cover Dynamics

A special issue of Remote Sensing (ISSN 2072-4292). This special issue belongs to the section "Urban Remote Sensing".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 December 2022) | Viewed by 13888

Special Issue Editors

Doctoral School of Urban Planning, “Ion Mincu” University of Architecture and Urbanism, 010014 Bucharest, Romania
Interests: environmetrics; systems ecology; spatial ecology; geostatistics; urban ecology; landscape ecology; land cover and use; land cover and use changes; sustainable spatial development
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Key Laboratory of Digital Earth Science, Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100094, China
Interests: vegetation remote sensing; agricultural remote sensing; climate change; carbon cycle
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
National Meteorological Administration, 97 Bucuresti-Ploiesti, 013686 Bucharest, Romania
Interests: climate variability and change, climate predictability, climate impact, climate risks and adaptation

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Part of the “global changes nexus”, climate changes and land cover and use changes have important economic, societal and environmental consequences at different spatial scales. However, their synergies have not been sufficiently explored. Since the urban areas concentrate an increasing population, the effects of the “global changes” in general and of climate and land change in particular are a major research challenge. The Special Issue is aimed at examining the two folded implications of the relationship between climate and land changes, with a particular focus on the human-dominated systems. Although the main focus is set on the urban areas, addressing the landscape scale will be permitted, provided a connection with the anthropic activities. The particular objectives of the Special Issue include a better understanding of the climate and land changes connection, an understanding of its variation at several spatial scales and a sound balance between the theory and its possible applications, related, but not limited, to the sustainable urban development, green infrastructure, human activities, urban and territorial planning, governance, and urban biodiversity. In addition to articles contributing to an advancement of the theory, we welcome methodological papers presenting new and multidisciplinary approaches for assessing the complexity of these issues.

Dr. Alexandru-Ionuţ Petrişor
Prof. Dr. Dailiang Peng
Dr. Roxana Bojariu
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • urban climate
  • landscape dynamics
  • urban heat island
  • urban biodiversity
  • green infrastructure
  • urban sustainability
  • urban/territorial/spatial planning

Published Papers (6 papers)

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Research

20 pages, 4093 KiB  
Article
Local Climate Zones to Identify Surface Urban Heat Islands: A Systematic Review
by Rodrigo Fernandes, Victor Nascimento, Marcos Freitas and Jean Ometto
Remote Sens. 2023, 15(4), 884; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/rs15040884 - 05 Feb 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2594
Abstract
The Land Surface Temperature (LST) obtained by remote sensing data is an essential indicator for analyzing the Surface Urban Heat Island (SUHI). A factor contributing to its occurrence is the reflections of the different materials in urban and rural areas, which significantly affect [...] Read more.
The Land Surface Temperature (LST) obtained by remote sensing data is an essential indicator for analyzing the Surface Urban Heat Island (SUHI). A factor contributing to its occurrence is the reflections of the different materials in urban and rural areas, which significantly affect the energy balance near the surface. Therefore, recent studies have increasingly used the Local Climate Zones (LCZs) classification system to discriminate those urban areas. Therefore, our study aims to perform a systematic review using the PRISMA method of LCZ classification applied to understand the LST and the SUHI phenomenon. At first, 10,403 related articles were found in the scientific literature which, after passing through filtering stages, resulted in 51 that were further analyzed. Our results showed that these articles were very recent, beginning in 2016, and present an increasing trend. Even though all articles reviewed somehow try to understand the Urban Heat Island phenomenon, in more than half of them, the SUHI calculation method was not mentioned. China was the country with the most studies. Images from Landsat and TERRA/AQUA sensors appeared in 82% of the studies. The method that appears the most to LCZ definitions is from the World Urban Database. Finally, we conclude that LCZ mapping methodologies were accurate enough for SUHI studies considering the current climatic changes. Therefore, this systematic review can help new studies on SUHI identification through LCZ in different world areas using remote sensing data to estimate the LST. Full article
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18 pages, 5834 KiB  
Article
Planning for Sustainable Cities in Africa: Experiences, Challenges and Prospects of Monitoring Geospatial Indicators
by Shrijwal Adhikari, Preeti Koirala, Amit Ghosh and Matieu Henry
Remote Sens. 2022, 14(12), 2821; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/rs14122821 - 12 Jun 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2405
Abstract
The African continent is receiving unprecedented pressure from population growth, urbanisation, decreased agricultural productivity and changing climate. However, the continent lacks technological advancement. Therefore, there is a need to apply global data and open geospatial tools for analysis to prevent, stop and comprehend [...] Read more.
The African continent is receiving unprecedented pressure from population growth, urbanisation, decreased agricultural productivity and changing climate. However, the continent lacks technological advancement. Therefore, there is a need to apply global data and open geospatial tools for analysis to prevent, stop and comprehend the trend and effects of land degradation, food insecurity and the unsustainability of cities. The study takes three representative indicators (climate risk, land degradation and land consumption) from FAO’s four strategic better’s to demonstrate the feasibility and applicability of global datasets to support decision makers. Three representative cities in Africa are selected for the study—Houet, Burkina Faso (West Africa); Kisumu, Kenya (East Africa); and Analamanga, Madagascar (South East Africa). The study found that eight Fokontany of the Analamanga region were at high risk from climate change; at the ward level, a maximum of 54.2% of the total degraded land area in Kisumu; and maximum land-consumption rate of 1.5 was found in Houet at the department level. The results of this study can be a basis for policymakers in planning an inclusive climate-adaptation measure and sustainable land-use frameworks and policies. Full article
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18 pages, 3722 KiB  
Article
Characterizing Spatial Patterns of the Response Rate of Vegetation Green-Up Dates to Land Surface Temperature in Beijing, China (2001–2019)
by Fumin Wang, Siting Chen, Qiuxiang Yi, Dailiang Peng, Xiaoping Yao, Tianyue Xu, Jueyi Zheng and Jiale Li
Remote Sens. 2022, 14(12), 2788; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/rs14122788 - 10 Jun 2022
Viewed by 1474
Abstract
The phenology indicator of vegetation green-up dates (GUD) is prone to being affected by changes in temperature. However, the influencing degree of urbanization-induced temperature warming on vegetation GUDs among different vegetation species along the urban-rural gradient remains inadequately described. In this study, based [...] Read more.
The phenology indicator of vegetation green-up dates (GUD) is prone to being affected by changes in temperature. However, the influencing degree of urbanization-induced temperature warming on vegetation GUDs among different vegetation species along the urban-rural gradient remains inadequately described. In this study, based on the long-term (2001–2019) satellite-derived vegetation GUDs and nighttime land surface temperature (LST) of forests, grasslands, and croplands along the urban-rural gradient with Beijing (China) as a case study area, the responses of vegetation GUDs to temperature changes were quantitatively analyzed, taking into account the vegetation types and distances away from the urban domain. The results show that (1) long-term GUDs and LST are significantly negatively correlated, characterized by a weaker significant correlation near the urban area when compared with its surrounding areas, with the greatest absolute linear correlation coefficients (r) happening at rings 32 km (rmax = −0.93, forests), 20 km and 48 km (rmax = −0.83, grasslands), and 34 km (rmax = −0.82, croplands), respectively; (2) the magnitude of change in GUDs over the past 19 year (2001–2019) are significantly positively correlated with these in LST near the urban area, demonstrating a distance-decay trend, with the greatest advance in GUDs occurring at the ring nearest the urban area, by about 20 days (forests), 24.5 days (grasslands), and 15.6 days (croplands), respectively; (3) the spatial pattern of the response rate of GUDs change to LST change (days K−1) also showed a declining trend with distance, with GUD advanced by 6.8 days K−1 (forests), 7.5 days K−1 (grasslands), and 4.9 days K−1 (croplands) at the closest ring to the urban, decreasing to about 2.3 days K−1 (48 km), 4.1 days K−1 (18 km), and 1 day K−1 (18 km), respectively, indicating a notable influence of temperature warming on vegetation GUDs near the urban domains. Full article
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22 pages, 10870 KiB  
Article
Earth Observation Data Exploitation in Urban Surface Modelling: The Urban Energy Balance Response to a Suburban Park Development
by Dimitris Tsirantonakis and Nektarios Chrysoulakis
Remote Sens. 2022, 14(6), 1473; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/rs14061473 - 18 Mar 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2333
Abstract
Cities are developing rapidly as an increasing percentage of the global population resides in urban areas. In the face of climate change, the sustainable development of cities is crucial for the well-being and safety of urban populations. The potential of planning interventions towards [...] Read more.
Cities are developing rapidly as an increasing percentage of the global population resides in urban areas. In the face of climate change, the sustainable development of cities is crucial for the well-being and safety of urban populations. The potential of planning interventions towards improving of urban resilience can be evaluated based on methodological approaches used in the domain of urban climate. In this study, we present how Earth Observation (EO) can be systematically used to evaluate urban planning interventions, based on Urban Surface Models (USM) simulations. More specifically, the impact of a suburban park development in Heraklion, Crete, was assessed based on simulations of the USM SUEWS (Surface Urban Energy and Water Balance Scheme), which was forced by EO data. Multi-source satellite data were analyzed to provide information on urban form, highlighting the importance of EO data in evaluating the environmental sustainability potential of urban planning interventions. The modifications caused by this planning intervention to surface energy fluxes were simulated. The scale (102 m) and the type (no-use vegetated area changed to recreational vegetated) of the intervention triggered minor responses in the Urban Energy Balance (UEB) at neighborhood scale, since the change of the relevant surface fluxes was not greater than 10 W m−2, on average, assuming no irrigation and no important changes in soil moisture. However, the planned substitution of grass and bare soil with paved surfaces and trees was found to increase the overall net change in heat storage, therefore contributing to the urban heat island development. Full article
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18 pages, 8979 KiB  
Article
Landsat-Based Monitoring of the Heat Effects of Urbanization Directions and Types in Hangzhou City from 2000 to 2020
by Lin Chen, Bin Zhou, Weidong Man and Mingyue Liu
Remote Sens. 2021, 13(21), 4268; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/rs13214268 - 23 Oct 2021
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 1954
Abstract
Rapid urbanization has produced serious heat effects worldwide. However, the literature lacks a detailed study on heat effects based on the directions and types of urban expansion. In this work, a typical city with an extremely hot summer climate, Hangzhou, was selected as [...] Read more.
Rapid urbanization has produced serious heat effects worldwide. However, the literature lacks a detailed study on heat effects based on the directions and types of urban expansion. In this work, a typical city with an extremely hot summer climate, Hangzhou, was selected as a case study to determine the relationships between the urban heat-effect dynamics and spatiotemporal patterns of impervious surface expansion. Based on long-term Landsat imagery, this study characterized the spatiotemporal patterns of urban expansion and normalized surface temperatures in Hangzhou City from 2000 to 2020 using object-based backdating classification and a generalized single-channel algorithm with the help of a land-use transfer matrix, expansion index, and spatial centroids. Relevant policies, industries, and traffic networks were discussed to help explain urban expansion and thermal environment changes. The results demonstrated that in 2020, the area of impervious surfaces covered 1139.29 km2. The majority of the gains were in farmland, water, and forests, and the annual growth rate was 32.12 km2/year beginning in 2000. During the expansion of impervious surfaces, the city warmed at a slower rate, and more thermal contributions came from sub-urban areas. The southeast-oriented expansion of impervious surfaces was the key reason for the spatiotemporal dynamics of the urban heat effects. The dominant urban edge expansion intensified the local heat effects. This research provides a Landsat-based methodology for better understanding the heat effects of urban expansion. Full article
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26 pages, 2601 KiB  
Article
Dynamics of Open Green Areas in Polish and Romanian Cities during 2006–2018: Insights for Spatial Planners
by Alexandru-Ionut Petrisor, Lidia Mierzejewska, Andrei Mitrea, Krzysztof Drachal and Antonio Valentin Tache
Remote Sens. 2021, 13(20), 4041; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/rs13204041 - 10 Oct 2021
Cited by 11 | Viewed by 1886
Abstract
Studying green urban infrastructure is important because of its ecosystem services, contributing to the welfare and comfort of citizens, mitigation of climate changes, and sustainability goals. Urban planning can increase or diminish the performance of ecosystem services. Despite numerous studies on the green [...] Read more.
Studying green urban infrastructure is important because of its ecosystem services, contributing to the welfare and comfort of citizens, mitigation of climate changes, and sustainability goals. Urban planning can increase or diminish the performance of ecosystem services. Despite numerous studies on the green infrastructure–services–planning nexus, there are very few concrete planning recommendations. This study aims to provide such recommendations for a broader audience by analyzing the dynamic of open green areas in Polish and Romanian cities, connected with its drivers. A novel approach including mathematical modeling and geostatistical analyses was applied to Urban Atlas and statistical yearbooks data. The results indicated that open green areas were lost and fragmented in all Romanian and Polish cities during 2006–2018. The drivers included urban built-up areas, population and density, the number of building permits, number of new dwellings completed, number of employees, and total length of roads. The study also revealed a tremendous lack of consistent datasets across the countries using the same statistical indicators. Based on the findings, planners should aim to preserve and develop urban greenery and maintain its continuity. City managers should use more research and decision-making policy developers to develop targeted policies and scientists should develop planning manuals. Full article
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