Assessment of Urban Thermal Environments Using a Combination of the Local Climate Zone and Landscape Ecological Metrics in Taipei City
Publication: Journal of Urban Planning and Development
Volume 150, Issue 2
Abstract
The urban heat island effect has become a common meteorological phenomenon in urban areas in recent years. Research on urban thermal environments has used various technologies, such as remote sensing, on-site/mobile measurement, and model simulation. This study employed satellite images to comprehensively identify the correlations between thermal environments and the urban morphology in Taipei, Taiwan. This study applied the local climate zone (LCZ) scheme to classify urban land types by surface characteristics. The LCZ classification result was used as the basic unit for assessing and calculating urban forms by the landscape ecological metrics (LEM). For the thermal environment information, this study collected air temperature data by mobile measurements and combined it with records from weather stations. The results showed that different urban form compositions were associated with thermal environments. Built-up areas with higher levels of edge density tended to have higher heat intensity. For two regions with the same proportion of green spaces and built environments, the temperature varies with different configurations. This study can evaluate the urban thermal environments and assist urban planners who do not have a meteorological background in finding urban climate issues and developing heat mitigation strategies.
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Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models, or codes that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Acknowledgments
This study was organized and is summarized as part of the master’s thesis of Tzu-Wen Lo. The authors thank her for her effort in the preliminary investigation and analysis. The authors also thank the Ministry of Science and Technology of Taiwan for financially supporting this research under Contract Nos. 108-2221-E-006-008 -MY3 and 111-2221-E-343-001-MY3.
Author contributions: Yu-Cheng Chen and Tzu-Wen Lo carried out the experiment. Yu-Cheng Chen wrote the manuscript with support from Kuo-An Hung. Wan-Yu Shih and Tzu-Ping Lin helped supervise the project. All authors reviewed the manuscript.
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Journal of Urban Planning and Development
Volume 150 • Issue 2 • June 2024
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© 2024 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Aug 15, 2023
Accepted: Dec 12, 2023
Published online: Feb 28, 2024
Published in print: Jun 1, 2024
Discussion open until: Jul 28, 2024
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