Blue-Green Spaces on the Landsat Data

What is it about?

China’s urbanization is characterized by rapid speed, large scale and high energy consumption, which causes a series of ecological problems. Among these problems, urban thermal environment is particularly prominent, and the most intuitive reflection is the heat island effect. It is of great significance to optimize the urban layout to give full play to the cooling effect of blue-green spaces for improving urban thermal environment. Compared with other methods, it is more extensive and feasible. However, the current research on urban thermal environment mostly focuses on revealing the driving effects of different land use, and lacks of in-depth discussions on blue-green spaces. Tianjin is located in the northeast of the North China Plain, and has a typical warm temperate sub-humid monsoon climate. This paper takes the six districts of Tianjin City as the research area, covering Heping District, Nankai District, Hongqiao District, Hebei District, Hexi District and Hedong District, with a total area of about 181.18 square kilometers. The typical climate and urbanization characteristics of Tianjin can provide reference for cities with the same characteristics. Firstly, this paper had adopted the Landsat changing scenario of the city gained during the periods of 2004, 2011 and 2017 to formulate the land surface temperature by Mono-window Algorithm, and divided the results into seven temperature zones by standard deviation classification method. In regard to blue-green spaces, this paper had identified Landsat satellite data by Maximum Likelihood Classifier, and classified land use into three categories: blue spaces, green spaces, and non-blue and green spaces. And, next, this paper had studied the correlation between the landscape pattern of blue-green spaces and urban thermal environment by Landscape Pattern Analysis, and used Moving-window Analysis to compare the relationship between thermal environment and blue-green spaces at different spatial scales. And so the research results prove that, the high-temperature regions of Tianjin has been expanding along with the expansion and agglomeration of the urban areas and across the river space restrictions, while the low-temperature regions of the city are mainly concentrated in the blue-green spaces, during the periods of 2004, 2011 and 2017. Furthermore, in the landscape pattern level, there is a significant negative correlation between patch perimeter index of blue-green spaces and land surface temperature, and a significant positive correlation between patch perimeter area ratio index of blue-green spaces and land surface temperature. In the multi-scale spatial pattern, the correlation between the Percent of Landscape of blue spaces patches and land surface temperature is the highest in the 1500 meters × 1500 meters sample, and the Percent of Landscape of green spaces patches and land surface temperature is the highest in the 300 meters × 300 meters sample. In addition, the improvement efficiency of thermal environment in blue spaces is higher. In the end, the optimization suggestions of adjusting the layout of blue-green spaces to effectively improve the urban thermal environment problem are proposed. By optimizing the blue-green space landscape patterns at the optimal scale, increasing the blue spaces in the northern high temperature range, widening and transforming the existing waterways, constructing riverside greenways and other strategies to effectively deal with the thermal environmental problems, improving the ecology and livability of the city. It is hoped to provide new ideas and references for the construction of ecological and livable city under the background of rapid urbanization. In the research process, due to the limitation of data sources, calculation methods and other factors, the relevant conclusion is still limited at the spatial scale. In the future research, the thermal environment and the pattern of blue-green spatial landscape at the fine scale will be studied.

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Photo by Willem Chan on Unsplash

Photo by Willem Chan on Unsplash

Why is it important?

The research is important because it focuses on optimizing the urban layout to leverage the cooling effect of blue-green spaces for improving the urban thermal environment. Given the rapid and large-scale urbanization in China with high energy consumption, resulting in various ecological problems, particularly the prominent urban thermal environment and the heat island effect, this research provides a more extensive and feasible approach. By studying the correlation between the landscape pattern of blue-green spaces and the urban thermal environment, and comparing the relationship at different spatial scales, the research offers valuable insights. The findings can help propose optimization suggestions, such as adjusting the layout of blue-green spaces, to effectively address the urban thermal environment issues, enhance the ecology and livability of the city. This research hopes to provide new ideas and references for the construction of an ecological and livable city in the context of rapid urbanization. Although limited by data sources, calculation methods, and other factors at the current spatial scale, the study paves the way for future research on the thermal environment and the pattern of blue-green spatial landscape at a finer scale.

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