Examining the Relationship Between Spatial Configurations of Urban Impervious Surfaces and Land Surface Temperature

The urban heat island (UHI) effect has significant effects on the quality of life and public health. Numerous studies have addressed the relationship between UHI and the increase in urban impervious surface area (ISA), but few of them have considered the impact of the spatial configuration of ISA on UHI. Land surface temperature (LST) may be affected not only by urban land cover, but also by neighboring land cover. The aim of this research was to investigate the effects of the abundance and spatial association of ISAs on LST. Taking Harbin City, China as an example, the impact of ISA spatial association on LST measurements was examined. The abundance of ISAs and the LST measurements were derived from Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) imagery of 2000 and 2010, and the spatial association patterns of ISAs were calculated using the local Moran’s I index. The impacts of ISA abundance and spatial association on LST were examined using correlation analysis. The results suggested that LST has significant positive associations with both ISA abundance and the Moran’s I index of ISAs, indicating that both the abundance and spatial clustering of ISAs contribute to elevated values of LST. It was also found that LST is positively associated with clustering of high-ISA-percentage areas (i.e.,>50%) and negatively associated with clustering of low-ISA-percentage areas (i.e.,<25%). The results suggest that, in addition to the abundance of ISAs, their spatial association has a significant effect on UHIs.