Urban thermal environment analysis by local climate zone in Beijing

Local climate zone(LCZ) is a classification scheme to study urban heat island effect．Multi-source data were used for local climate zone mapping in Beijing. The thermal characteristics and seasonal differences in different LCZ types were discussed．A hierarchical classification method was developed to construct the local climate zone map．Radiation transfer equation method was applied to Landsat 8 satellite remote sensing images to retrieve monthly land surface temperature．Thermal behavior and differences in local climate zones were analyzed for each month using local climate zone map and multi-temporal land surface temperature data．The buildings in Beijing are mainly of medium and low-rise, and most are open types．Local climate zone D of the middle and low vegetation areas occupied the majority of natural land cover．The compact-type built types (local climate zone 1-3) were found to generally have higher surface temperature than other types. Land surface temperature of LCZ 1-3 increased with the decrease of building height．The forest areas of local climate zone A/B showed the lowest temperature except water bodies．There were significant differences in surface temperature for each local climate zone type in summer．Urban heat island intensity reached the highest value in July．The present work can provide reference for uban planning and design and contribute to the sustainable and healthy urban development.