Studies on the Relationship between Land Use/Cover Types and Urban Heat Island Effect in Changchun

In recent years, enhanced urban heat island effect is a prominent urban environmental issue that many scholars are studying. In this paper, the capital of Jilin Province - Changchun had been selected as the study area. Thermal infrared bands of Landsat 7 ETM+ daytime image(July 15,1999) and Landsat 5 TM daytime image (July 29,2007) were used to retrieve brightness temperature instead of land surface temperature. This study provides retrieved images on the UHI phenomena in Changchun and the findings can be used to guide further study integrating satellite high-resolution thermal data with land use/cover .In conclusion, the spatial structure of thermal field was obtained in different time. The NDVI, NDWI, NDBI and NDBaI indices were used to characterize the land use/cover types in the study region and to study the relationships between land use/cover types and UHI qualitatively and quantitatively. The results show that it had a significant urban heat island phenomenon in Changchun in two different years. Furthermore, according to quantitative statistics, there are close relations between the spatial structure of urban thermal patterns and land use types. The results in this study may also be used in programming of city environment and forecasting of heat island effect.