Quantitative analysis and prediction of urban heat island intensity on urban-rural gradient: A case study of Shanghai.

Urbanization causes enormous land use/land cover (LULC) changes, which have become significant drivers of land surface temperature (LST) change in rapidly urbanizing city, and the changes in LULC subsequently increase the LST to form urban heat island (UHI). This paper first identified the spatial distribution pattern of the LULC changes and surface urban heat island intensity (SUHII) in the study area in recent 20 years based on Landsat TM/OLI data. And later, the relationship between the distribution of impervious surface (IS) and vegetable coverage (VC) and SUHII was analyzed quantitatively.