Monitoring land surface thermal environments under the background of landscape patterns in arid regions: A case study in Aksu river basin.

Land surface temperature (LST) is defined as an important indicator in the formation and evolution of climate. In some cases, changes in landscape patterns affect LST, even more than the contribution of greenhouse gases. Although much work has been done with respect to the correlations between urban development and thermal environment dynamics, the related questions regarding relationships between LST and landscape patterns in arid regions are not thoroughly considered. Understanding these questions is important in climate change and land planning. The objective of this study was to explore the spatiotemporal variations of LST by distribution index (DI) and Mann-Kendall mutation analysis method and to quantify the relationships between landscape patterns, climatic factors, topographic factors, and the land surface thermal environment (LSTE) by the ordinary linear regressions (OLS) model. The landscape patterns dataset, which was validated by a field trip, was extracted from the Land satellite (Landsat) TM/OLI images by the Random Forest methodology in ArcGIS software. The MODIS/LST product was validated by the "Monthly dataset of China's surface climate" and a field trip. Annual LST increased by 0.54 °C (23.15 °C in 2000 and 23.79 °C in 2015). In different landscape patterns, the percentage of areas with a high level of LST showed a significant difference. In barren land, the highest area proportion for the high LST level was larger than in other landscape patterns. Meanwhile, the area of low LST was mainly concentrated in water bodies. Considerable changes have occurred in landscape patterns, in which the most noteworthy was cultivated land encroaching on grass land (3708.44 km). The composition of landscape patterns was more important than distribution in determining the region's LST. These findings provide valuable information for land planners dealing with climate change and ecosystem conservation in arid regions.