The surface urban heat island in the city of Brno (Czech Republic) derived from land surface temperatures and selected reasons for its spatial variability

• Published in: Theoretical and applied climatology Vol. 112; no. 1-2; pp. 89 - 98
• Main Author: Dobrovolny, Petr
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Vienna Springer Vienna 01.04.2013; Springer; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Analysis; Aquatic Pollution; Atmospheric Protection/Air Quality Control/Air Pollution; Atmospheric Sciences; Cities; Climatology; Convection, turbulence, diffusion. Boundary layer structure and dynamics; Earth and Environmental Science; Earth resources technology satellites; Earth Sciences; Earth, ocean, space; Exact sciences and technology; External geophysics; Heat; Islands; Land surface temperature; Land use; Landsat; Meteorology; Original Paper; Remote sensing; Rural areas; Surface chemistry; Urban areas; Urban climatology; Urban heat islands; Urbanization; Vegetation cover; Waste Water Technology; Water Management; Water Pollution Control; Central Europe; Czech Republic; Europe; Czech Rep., Jihhomoravsky, Brno; Czech Rep; Urban Heat Island; Land Surface Temperature; Impervious Surface; Normalize Difference Vegetation Index; Landsat; Urban structure; Space remote sensing; Summer; Satellite observation; Surface temperature; urban areas; Microclimate; Urban heat island; Landsat satellite; Polar orbiting satellite; Urban climate; Ground surface; Plant cover; spatial variations; Thermal imaging
• ISSN: 0177-798X; 1434-4483
• DOI: 10.1007/s00704-012-0717-8

Thermal infrared images from Landsat satellites are used to derive land surface temperatures (LST) and to calculate the intensity of the surface urban heat island (UHI) during the summer season in and around the city of Brno (Czech Republic). Overall relief, land use structure, and the distribution of built-up areas determine LST and UHI spatial variability in the study area. Land-cover classes, amount and vigor of vegetation, and density of built-up areas are used as explanatory variables. The highest LST values typically occur in industrial and commercial areas, which contribute significantly to surface UHI intensity. The intensity of surface UHI, defined as the difference between mean LST for urban and rural areas, reached 4.2 and 6.7 °C in the two images analyzed. Analysis of two surface characteristics in terms of the amount of vegetation cover, represented by normalized difference vegetation index, demonstrates the predominance of LST variability (56–67 % of explained variance) over the degree of urbanization as represented by density of buildings (37–40 % of LST variance).