Effects of Dubai coastline extreme urbanization in land and sea on local near-surface climate variables patterns

Author(s):  
Emily Elhacham ◽  
Pinhas Alpert

<p>Over a billion people currently live in coastal areas, and coastal urbanization is rapidly growing worldwide. Here, we explore the impact of an extreme and rapid coastal urbanization on near-surface climatic variables, based on MODIS data, Landsat and some in-situ observations. We study Dubai, one of the fastest growing cities in the world over the last two decades. Dubai's urbanization centers along its coastline – in land, massive skyscrapers and infrastructure have been built, while in sea, just nearby, unique artificial islands have been constructed.</p><p>Studying the coastline during the years of intense urbanization (2001-2014), we show that the coastline exhibits surface urban heat island characteristics, where the urban center experiences higher temperatures, by as much as 2.0°C and more, compared to the adjacent less urbanized zones. During development, the coastal surface urban heat island has nearly doubled its size, expanding towards the newly developed areas. This newly developed zone also exhibited the largest temperature trend along the coast, exceeding 0.1°C/year on average.</p><p>Overall, we found that over land, temperature increases go along with albedo decreases, while in sea, surface temperature decreases and albedo increases were observed particularly over the artificial islands. These trends in land and sea temperatures affect the land-sea temperature gradient which influences the breeze intensity. The above findings, along with the increasing relative humidity shown, directly affect the local population and ecosystem and add additional burden to this area, which is already considered as one of the warmest in the world and a climate change 'hot spot'.</p><p> </p><p><strong>References:</strong></p><p>E. Elhacham and P. Alpert, "Impact of coastline-intensive anthropogenic activities on the atmosphere from moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) data in Dubai (2001–2014)", <em>Earth’s Future</em>, 4, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1002/2015EF000325</p><p>E. Elhacham and P. Alpert, "Temperature patterns along an arid coastline experiencing extreme and rapid urbanization, case study: Dubai", submitted.</p>

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 1171 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hongyu Du ◽  
Fengqi Zhou ◽  
Chunlan Li ◽  
Wenbo Cai ◽  
Hong Jiang ◽  
...  

In the trend of global warming and urbanization, frequent extreme weather influences the life of citizens seriously. Shanghai, as a typical mega-city in China that has been successful in urbanization, suffers seriously from the urban heat island (UHI) effect. The research concentrates on the spatial and temporal pattern of surface UHI and land use. Then, the relation between them are further discussed. The results show that for the last 15 years, the UHI effect of Shanghai has been increasing continuously in both intensity and area. The UHI extends from the city center toward the suburban area. Along with the year, the ratio in area of Agricultural Land (AL), Wetland (WL), and Bare Land (BL) has decreased. On the contrary, Construction Land (CL) and Green Land (GL) have increased. The average land surface temperature (LST) rankings for each research year from high to low were all CL, BL, GL, AL, and WL. CL contributed the most to the UHI effect, while WL and GL contributed the most to mitigate the UHI. The conclusion provides practical advice aimed to mitigate the UHI effect for urban planning authorities.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 762
Author(s):  
Liu Tian ◽  
Yongcai Li ◽  
Jun Lu ◽  
Jue Wang

High population density, dense high-rise buildings, and impervious pavements increase the vulnerability of cities, which aggravate the urban climate environment characterized by the urban heat island (UHI) effect. Cities in China provide unique information on the UHI phenomenon because they have experienced rapid urbanization and dramatic economic development, which have had a great influence on the climate in recent decades. This paper provides a review of recent research on the methods and impacts of UHI on building energy consumption, and the practical techniques that can be used to mitigate the adverse effects of UHI in China. The impact of UHI on building energy consumption depends largely on the local microclimate, the urban area features where the building is located, and the type and characteristics of the building. In the urban areas dominated by air conditioning, UHI could result in an approximately 10–16% increase in cooling energy consumption. Besides, the potential negative effects of UHI can be prevented from China in many ways, such as urban greening, cool material, water bodies, urban ventilation, etc. These strategies could have a substantial impact on the overall urban thermal environment if they can be used in the project design stage of urban planning and implemented on a large scale. Therefore, this study is useful to deepen the understanding of the physical mechanisms of UHI and provide practical approaches to fight the UHI for the urban planners, public health officials, and city decision-makers in China.


2021 ◽  
pp. 117802
Author(s):  
Ahmed M. El Kenawy ◽  
Juan I. Lopez-Moreno ◽  
Matthew F. McCabe ◽  
Fernando Domínguez-Castro ◽  
Dhais Peña-Angulo ◽  
...  

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 158-177 ◽  
Author(s):  
Surabhi Mehrotra ◽  
Ronita Bardhan ◽  
Krithi Ramamritham

Urbanization leads to the densification of built-up areas, and thereby increases surface heat island intensity which is one of the growing concerns in the rapidly urbanizing cities. Another notable aspect of cities like Mumbai is the uncontrolled growth of informal slum housing clusters, which have emerged as a significant urban built form in the landscape of cities. This study presents a case of Mumbai that aims to explore the linkages between slum housing—here referred as ‘slum urban form’ (SUF)—and surface urban heat island (SUHI) supported by spatial-statistical analysis. The magnitude of the impact of urban form on SUHI, measured by land surface temperature (LST), is examined using Cohen’s d index, which measures the effect size for two groups—SUF and ‘formal’ housing—on LST. The results confirm a ‘large’ effect indicating a significant difference in mean LST between the two groups. The spatial analysis reveals a statistically significant spatial clustering of LST and SUF ( p-value < 0.05), and bivariate local indicator of spatial association (LISA) confirms that the spatial association of SUF is surrounded by ‘high’ LST (Moran I: 0.49). The exploratory spatial analysis indicates that the contribution of SUF in elevating SUHI intensity is more than the formal housing areas and has increased vulnerability to heat stress. The results were validated on the ground using environmental sensors, which confirms the susceptibility of SUF to heat stress.


Urbani izziv ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (30) ◽  
pp. 105-112
Author(s):  
Gordana Kaplan

Rapid urbanization has several negative effects on both the environment and human health. Urbanization has also become an important contributor to global warming. One of these effects is the urban heat island (UHI), which is caused by human activities and defined as the temperature difference between urban and surrounding rural areas. With rapid urbanization in the past few decades, Skopje has experienced remarkable UHI effects. To investigate the roles of built-up and green areas in a surface UHI, this article uses satellite data from Landsat ETM+ to analyse the land surface temperature and high-resolution Planet Scope DOVE data to analyse built-up and green areas. For geostatistical analyses, seventeen randomly selected subareas in Skopje were used. The results show a significant correlation between the UHI and built-up areas, and strong correlation between green areas and areas not affected by the UHI, indicating that the UHI effect can be significantly weakened with additional green areas. One of the significant findings in the study is the ideal proportion of built-up (40%) and green areas (60%), where the UHI effect is weak, or in some cases prevented. For future studies, investigating other factors that may contribute to the UHI phenomenon is suggested.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 2052 ◽  
Author(s):  
José Antonio Sobrino ◽  
Itziar Irakulis

Retrieval of land surface temperature (LST) from satellite data allows to estimate the surface urban heat island (SUHI) as the difference between the LST obtained in the urban area and the LST of its surroundings. However, this definition depends on the selection of the urban and surroundings references, which translates into greater difficulty in comparing SUHI values in different urban agglomerations across the world. In order to avoid this problem, a methodology is proposed that allows reliable quantification of the SUHI. The urban reference is obtained from the European Space Agency Climate Change Initiative Land Cover and three surroundings references are considered; that is, the urban adjacent (Su), the future adjacent (Sf), and the peri-urban (Sp), which are obtained from mathematical expressions that depend exclusively on the urban area. In addition, two formulations of SUHI are considered: SUHIMAX and SUHIMEAN, which evaluate the maximum and average SUHI of the urban area for each of the three surrounding references. As the urban population growth phenomenon is a world-scale problem, this methodology has been applied to 71 urban agglomerations around the world using LST data obtained from the sea and land surface temperature radiometer (SLSTR) on board Sentinel-3A. The results show average values of SUHIMEAN of (1.8 ± 0.9) °C, (2.6 ± 1.3) °C, and (3.1 ± 1.7) °C for Su, Sf, and Sp, respectively, and an average difference between SUHIMAX and SUHIMEAN of (3.1 ± 1.1) °C. To complete the study, two additional indices have been considered: the Urban Thermal Field Variation Index (UFTVI) and the Discomfort Index (DI), which proved to be essential for understanding the SUHI phenomenon and its consequences on the quality of life of the inhabitants.


Author(s):  
Van Tran Thi ◽  
Bao Ha Duong Xuan ◽  
Mai Nguyen Thi Tuyet

In urban area, one of the great problem is the rise of temperature, which leads to form the urban heat island effect. This paper refers to the trend of the urban surface temperature extracted from the Landsat images from which to consider changes in the formation of surface urban heat island for the north of Ho Chi Minh city in period 1995-2015. Research has identified land surface temperature from thermal infrared band, according to the ability of the surface emission based on characteristics of normalized difference vegetation index NDVI. The results showed that temperature fluctuated over the city with a growing trend and the gradual expansion of the area of the high-temperature zone towards the suburbs. Within 20 years, the trend of the formation of surface urban heat island with two typical locations showed a clear difference between the surface temperature of urban areas and rural areas with space expansion of heat island in 4 times in 2015 compared to 1995. An extreme heat island located in the inner city has an area of approximately 18% compared to the total area of the region. Since then, the solution to reduce the impact of urban heat island has been proposed, in order to protect the urban environment and the lives of residents in Ho Chi Minh City becoming better


2019 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 1-1
Author(s):  
DMSLB Dissanayake ◽  
Takehiro Morimoto ◽  
Yuji Murayama ◽  
Manjula Ranagalage

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> Exploring changes in land use and land cover (LULC) in the city area and its surrounding is important to understand the variation of surface urban heat island (SUHI) and surface urban heat island intensity (SUHII). The SUHII can be calculated based on the local climate zone by using land use and land cover compossition of the city and based on the urban rural zone . The objective of this research is to examine the spatiotemporal changes of LULC and the impact of its composition for the formation of SUHI in Addis Ababa City, Ethiopia based on the urban rural zones.</p><p> The mean center of the central business district of the Addis Ababa City was considered as the central point of the study area. We represented the 30&amp;thinsp;km&amp;thinsp;&amp;times;&amp;thinsp;30&amp;thinsp;km geographical area as a study area with a 15km radius from the central point. As data sources, multi-temporal satellite data provided by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) were used in respect to the years of 1986, 2001, and 2016. In the methodology, we first completed the classification of LULC by using pixel-oriented method for the three years and the validation of the classification has been made. For the classification five LULC classes were identified such as forest, impervious surface, grass land, bare land and crop land. Afterward, land surface temperature (LST) has been computed for three years respectively. Finally, urban rural gradient zones (URGZs) have been generated as a set of polygons with 210m distance in each zone from the central point of the study area. In order to evaluate the SUHII along the URGZs in respect to the LULC, the following analyses were accomplished: (i) the relationship between mean LST and composition of the LULC was computed, (ii) the SUHII was calculated based on the LST variation of main LULC categories and the temperature difference between URGZs, (iii) multi-temporal and multi-directional SUHII was computed, and (iv) linear regression analyses were used to assess the correlations of the mean LST with composition of LULC.</p><p> The results of the analyses show that (i) distribution pattern of SUHII has changed over the study period as results of changes in LULC, and (ii) mean LST gradually declines from city centre to outside of the city , then it can be seen increasing trends due to the effect of bare lands in rural area. This pattern can be seen over the three years as the result of multi-directional approach. The methodology presented will be able to apply other cities which are showing similar growth pattern by making necessary calibration, and our finding can be used as a proxy indicator to introduce appropriate landscape and town planning in a sustainable viewpoint in Addis Ababa City.</p>


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