The effects of brightness and prominent colors on outdoor thermal perception in Chongqing, China.

Outdoor thermal comfort has become an important factor affecting human mental and physical health due to rapid urbanization. This study aimed to investigate the influence of brightness and prominent colors on thermal perception in hot summer and cold winter regions. Meteorological measurements were conducted accompanied by subjective thermal and visual questionnaires (n = 2020) during summer and winter.

Analysis of the Spatial Relationship between Ecosystem Regulation Services and Rural Tourism.

In the context of China's implementation of the rural revitalization strategy and establishment of a mechanism to realize the value of ecological products, rural tourism as an eco-friendly industry promotes regional social and economic development with high-quality natural and ecological conditions in rural areas and is one of the key patterns to realize regional green development. Existing studies in the field focus on the spatial relationship between rural tourism and traditional factors such as economy, population, and transportation and ignore to some extent the relationship between ecosystem services and rural tourism. However, from the perspective of distribution, rural tourism is popular mainly in areas with high ecological quality, so it can be inferred that there is a relationship between ecosystem services and rural tourism.

Impact of environmental comfort on urban vitality in small and medium-sized cities: A case study of Wuxi County in Chongqing, China.

China's urbanization has exceeded 64% and a large number of small and medium-sized cities are the key development areas in the new stage. In urban planning, it is very important to reveal the influence of environmental comfort on urban vitality to improve the life quality of residents in these towns. Thus, the study investigated the impact of environmental comfort on urban vitality using ordinary least squares regression in Wuxi County.

Does city-water layout matter? Comparing the cooling effects of water bodies across 34 Chinese megacities.

As most cities are located around or near waterbodies, it is essential to assess the thermal effect of these waterbodies. This research focuses on 34 Chinese megacities as case studies to examine the spatial relationship between city-water layout and the thermal effect of waterbodies. Landsat-8 remote-sensing images acquired around noontime in summer were used to retrieve land surface temperatures (LST) and classify land cover.

Influences of landform and urban form factors on urban heat island: Comparative case study between Chengdu and Chongqing.

Although the degraded urban thermal environment has been widely concerned, whether monocentric or polycentric urban development can alleviate urban heat island (UHI) is still debatable, particularly considering different types of cities in plain and mountainous settings. To fill the gap, this study chose the cases of Chengdu on alluvial flatlands and Chongqing on mountainous landforms in China for comparison. Adapting to natural landforms, Chengdu has a dominated monocentric urban form, whereas Chongqing has a naturally polycentric urban form.

Land surface phenology and land surface temperature changes along an urban-rural gradient in Yangtze River Delta, china.

Using SPOT/VGT NDVI time series images (2002-2009) and MODIS/LST images (2002-2009) smoothed by a Savitzky-Golay filter, the land surface phenology (LSP) and land surface temperature (LST), respectively, are extracted for six cities in the Yangtze River Delta, China, including Shanghai, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Changzhou, Wuxi, and Suzhou. The trends of the averaged LSP and LST are analyzed, and the relationship between these values is revealed along the urban-rural gradient. The results show that urbanization advances the start of the growing season, postpones the end of the growing season, prolongs the growing season length (GSL), and reduces the difference between maximal NDVI and minimal NDVI in a year (NDVIamp).

[Multi-gradients of land surface temperature in mountainous cities with rapid urbanization: a case study in central area of Chongqing City].

By using TM/ETM+ and MODIS images, the land surface temperature (LST) and relative heat island intensity (RHII) of the central area of Chongqing City were extracted to analyze the distribution patterns of the LST and RHII along the multi-gradients of topography, population, and gross domestic product (GDP) as well as the potential quantitative relationships. The LST and RHII manifested a non-monotonically decreasing trend along the gradients of elevation and relief degree, respectively, both with a significant quadratic polynomial relationship. The maximum RHII appeared at 200-350 m elevation section due to the massive urban construction activities, and had significant linear relationships with the population density and the GDP per square kilometer.

[Impact of urbanization on vegetation phenology in major cities in Yangtze River Delta region].

Based on the time series NDVI images from 1998 to 2005 and by the method of moving average, the vegetation phenology in urban areas and buffer zones of Shanghai, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Changzhou, Wuxi and Suzhou in Yangtze River Delta region were calculated. The difference of average phenology in urban areas and buffer zones was analyzed, and the relationship between this difference and the distance away from urban edge was studied. The results showed that in 1998-2005, the urbanization of the cities made the vegetations in their urban area had an earlier start of growing season (SOS), later end of growing season (EOS), longer growing season length (GSL), and smaller NDVIamp (difference of maximal and minimal NDVI in a year).