Evaluating Spatial Patterns of Land Use and urban Heat Island in The Fast Growing Metropolitan Shanghai, China

Remotely sensed data (Landsat TM5) were used to quantitatively characterize the patterns of land use and urban heat island (UHI) in the fast growing Metropolitan Shanghai, China. Results showed that, with dramatic change in land use and land cover driven by substantial economic growth since the 1990s, rapid expansion of the urbanized and urbanizing areas occurred at regional level during 1997 and 2004. Similarly, both the extent and magnitude of UHI in Shanghai have undergone a significant increase, though some newly emerging cooling patches were detected in the central urban area. On small and meso scales, a significant spatial patterning was present in UHI as indicated by land surface temperature (LST). Moreover, based on the satellite images, the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI), Normalized Difference Bareness Index (NDBaI), and Normalized Difference Build-up Index (NDBI) were produced to explore the relationship between land use and UHI effect. Although these indices were effective in characterizing the spatial and temporal patterns of UHI, there were some unexplainable factors due to the complexity in ecological process. As a whole, it can be predicted that the ongoing urban sprawl in the satellite towns will adversely cause a long term effect on regional atmospheric environment. Keywords Spatial pattern; Urban heat island (UHI); Land surface temperature (LST);urban sprawl ;Shanghai; China.