Landscape and Urban Planning 182 (2019) 92–100

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Landscape and Urban Planning

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/landurbplan

Research Paper

Quantifying the cooling-effects of urban and peri-urban wetlands using T

remote sensing data: Case study of cities of Northeast China
Zhenshan Xuea, Guanglei Houa, Zhongsheng Zhanga, Xianguo Lyua, Ming Jianga,b,
Yuanchun Zoua, Xiangjin Shena, Jie Wangc, Xiaohui Liua,
⁎

a
Research Center of Wetland Ecology and Environment, Northeast Institute of Geography and Agroecology, CAS, Changchun 130102, China
b
Jilin Provincial Joint Key Laboratory of Changbai Mountain Wetland and Ecology, Changchun 130102, China
c
School of Transportation and Vehicle Engineering, Shandong University of Technology, ZiBo, China

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: World urbanization has been increasing at a rapid pace over the past few decades, particularly in developing
Cooling-effect countries. The urban heat island (UHI) effect, which occurs during rapid urbanization, profoundly affects human
Urban wetlands life and health. The cooling-effect (CE) of urban wetlands can effectively mitigate the impact of UHI. In this
Urban heat island study, we estimated the intensity of UHI and quantitatively assessed the CE of urban wetlands in cities of
Temperature
northeast China by using split-window algorithm (SWA) to estimate land surface temperatures (LST) from
Landsat-8 TIRS. We used correlation analysis to examine the relationships between characteristics of wetlands
and surrounding buildings and two cooling-effect indices: normalized cooling capability index (NCCI) and
normalized cooling efficiency index (NCEI). Our results have shown that the cooling-effect of rivers is much
higher than that of other wetlands types and green spaces. The average NCCI of wetlands is 42.3 times higher
than that of green spaces. A strong positive relationship exists between the cooling capability of urban wetlands
and the area, shape and hydrologic connectivity of wetlands. Wetlands with more complex shape have better
cooling-effect. The average NCCI of wetlands connected to other surface waters six times higher than that of
isolated wetlands. There is a negative relationship between the cooling capability of urban wetlands and height
and density of surrounding buildings. These findings are helpful for designing urban wetlands and for urban
planning to minimize the potential environmental impacts of UHI.

1. Introduction indirect impacts on energy consumption, environmental quality, and

Over the past 3 decades, the extent of cities, particularly in devel-
oping countries, grew dramatically across the globe. In 2016, over 54
percent of the world’s population lived in urban areas. By 2030, global
urban areas are projected to increase by 1.2 million sq·km. Nearly half
of the increase is forecasted to occur in Asia, with China and India
absorbing over half of the regional total (Angel, Parent, Civco, Blei, &
Potere, 2011; Seto, Güneralp, & Hutyra, 2012). Also, China’s urban
population is projected to nearly double from 2000 to 2030 (Cao, Chen,
Pang, Zheng, & Nilsson, 2012). The rapid urban expansion could di-
rectly alter climate and hydro-systems locally to regionally (Grimm
et al., 2008). A well-known climatic phenomenon caused by urbani-
zation is the urban heat island (UHI) effect: replacing natural land-
scapes with man-made surfaces causes excess heat storage which is
slowly released at night (Arnfield, 2003; Coutts, Tapper, Beringer,
Loughnan, & Demuzere, 2013; Kim, 1992). UHI has both direct and
human health (O’Malley et al., 2014).
Compared with traditional air temperature measurement techni-
ques, remote sensing and GIS techniques are increasingly used in recent
studies of the UHI effect (Rasul et al., 2017; Yusuf, Pradhan, & Idrees,
2014). By using land surface temperatures (LST) data detected by
thermal infrared sensors, such as NOAA/AVHRR, TERRA/MODIS, and
Landsat, etc., the distribution, dynamicity, and heterogeneity of UHI
effect could be explicitly revealed (Clinton & Peng, 2013; Li, Zhang, &
Kainz, 2012; Sun, Chen, Chen, & Lü, 2012). Unlike Landsat TM/ETM
sensors with only one thermal band, Landsat 8 thermal infrared sensor
(TIRS) contains two thermal bands at 100-meter resolution (Barsi et al.,
2014; Rozenstein, Qin, Derimian, & Karnieli, 2014). This makes it is
possible to apply split-window (SW) algorithms and get more accurate
LST data (Yu, Guo, & Wu, 2014).
Urban and peri-urban wetlands are those which are located in or
adjacent to the boundaries of a city and provide a variety of benefits

⁎
Corresponding author at: Northeast Institute of Geography and Agroecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China.
E-mail address: liuxh@iga.ac.cn (X. Liu).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2018.10.015
Received 7 March 2018; Received in revised form 26 October 2018; Accepted 28 October 2018
Available online 02 November 2018
0169-2046/ © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Z. Xue et al.
and services (Lannas & Turpie, 2009; Wang, Ning, Yu, Xiao, & Li, 2008).
Remarkably, urban and peri-urban wetlands can provide a significant
cooling-effect (CE) to surrounding areas to weaken increasing UHI ef-
fects (Manteghi, Limit, & Remaz, 2015; Sun et al., 2012). However,
most UHI studies generally focus on the cooling-effect of parks and
forest cover. To fully explain the effect of urban and peri-urban wet-
lands on the temperature of cities, more research on the design, dis-
tribution, and type of urban wetlands is necessary. In this paper, we
quantitatively assessed the cooling-effect of wetlands in Changchun and
Jilin, two major cities of the Northeast, China that has experienced
rapid development in recent decades. By using LST data derived from
Landsat 8 TIRS and land cover data, we determined the boundary
threshold for cooling-effect and calculated normalized cooling cap-
ability index (NCCI) and normalized cooling efficiency index (NCEI) of
each wetland. Specifically, our aims were 1) to measure the efficiency
and capability of urban wetlands’ CE, 2) to quantify the relationship
between cooling-effect and wetland characteristics, such as size, hy-
drologic connectivity, landscape and height of surrounding buildings.
The results from this study have important implications for many other
inland cities.
2. Methods and material
2.1. Study area and ancillary data
Changchun City (43° 52.8′ N, 125° 21′ E) is the capital and largest
city of the Jilin province of China, and has a total area of approximately
7557 km2. Jilin City (43° 52′ N, 126° 33′ E) covers an area of 3636 km2,
second to Changchun City in Jilin province. These two cities are at
Fig. 1. Location of urban area and wetlands in the Changchun City and Jilin City.
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Landscape and Urban Planning 182 (2019) 92–100
approximately the same latitude in the central part of the Northeast
Plain of China, and are about 120 km apart (Fig. 1). The average ele-
vations of Changchun City and Jilin City are 236.8 and 183.4 m above
sea level, respectively. Both cities are under the influence of semi-
humid and continental monsoon climates, characterized by hot and
humid summers and cold winters. The annual mean temperature and
maximum temperature of Changchun City is about 6.38 °C and 11.78 °C
and that of Jilin City is about 5.67 °C and 12.21 °C (based on long-term
climate records from the weather stations located at 43.9° N, 125.22° E
and 43.8° N, 126.6° E). The population of Changchun City and Jilin City
in 2016 was 4.38 million and 2.23 million, respectively. The built-up
area (BUA) of Changchun City has increased from 90 km2 in 1980 to
506.3 km2 in 2015, an increase of 462.6%. The BUA of Jilin City also
increased within this period from 72 km2 to 185 km2, an increase of
around 156.9%. Historical levels of urbanization and hydrological
connectivity of wetlands in Changchun City were digitized from his-
torical city maps published in 1958. The current urban land cover data
and digital surface model (DSM) of the two cities used in this study
were extracted from urban digital datasets provided by Data Center of
the Provincial Department of Land and Resources. Different levels of
urbanization and nearly identical climatic conditions make the two
cities suitable study area for a contrastive study of urban wetlands’ CE.
2.2. Image pre-processing and wetland extraction
In this study, remotely sensed data in the form of Landsat-8 TIRS
with two thermal infrared spectral bands were used to retrieve LST.
Cloud-free images were delivered by the Geospatial Data Cloud (http://
www.gscloud.cn/), acquired at approximately10:21 AM (Beijing time)
Z. Xue et al. Landscape and Urban Planning 182 (2019) 92–100

Table 1 Ts = A0 + A1 T10 A2 T11 (1)

LST statistics of urban wetlands.
where Ts is LST, T10 and T11 are the brightness temperature of the two
Condition Min temperature Max temperature Wind (m/ thermal infrared bands 10 and 11 of Landsat-8. A0, A1, A2 are coeffi-
(oC) (oC) s) cients and they are decided by the following formula:
Changchun Sunny 20.5 32.4 S 1.73 A0 = E1 a10 + E2 a11 (1-1)
Jilin Sunny 19.4 31.6 S 1.78
A1 = 1 + A + E1 b10 (1-2)
on July 4, 2016. The path/rows of the World Reference System (WRS) A2 = A + E2 b11 (1-3)
of the two Landsat-8 images were 118/29 for Changchun City and 118/
30 for Jilin City. Weather condition in both cities on the exact day of Based on the algorithm developed by Qin et al., we defined:
imaging was shown in Table 1. Ci = i i( ) (1-4)
Before LST conversion, the two Landsat-8 OLI/TIRS images were
radiometrically calibrated and geometrically corrected with an accu- Di = [1 i( )][1 + (1 i) i( )] (1-5)
racy of fewer than 0.5 pixels. All images pre-processing was performed Where εi is the land surface emissivity of band i and τi(θ) is the
in the ENVI 5.1 software. We employed the visual interpretation atmospheric transmittance for the given zenith view angle θ of band i.
method to extract wetland information from Landsat-8 OLI images. In The parameters in formula (1) are described as follows:
this study, 21 wetlands (3 rivers, 5 reservoirs and 11 lakes), 19 in
Changchun City and 2 in Jilin City, with a total area of 36.6 sq·km, were A = D10 / E0 (1-6)
selected for investigation (Fig. 1). Three urban green spaces without E1 = D11 (1 C10 D10 )/ E0 (1-7)
wetlands in Changchun City (Gongqingtuan Park, Daishan Park, and Yu
Park) were selected for comparative analysis (Table 2). E2 = D10 (1 C11 D11)/ E0 (1-8)

E0 = D11 C10 D10 C11 (1-9)

2.3. LST retrieval from thermal infrared data
The formula (1) used three parameters, namely brightness tem-
The split-window algorithm (SWA) removes the atmospheric effect perature, land surface emissivity, and atmospheric transmittance.
through differential atmospheric absorption in the two adjacent
thermal infrared channels centered at about 11 and 12 μm, and the 2.3.1. Brightness temperature
linear or nonlinear combination of the brightness temperatures is fi- We calculated the brightness temperature by the header file of
nally applied for LST estimation (Du, Ren, Qin, Meng, & Zhao, 2015; Landsat-8. First, the DN values of the images are converted radiance
O’Malley et al., 2014). Previous studies have shown that, for Landsat-8 using gain and bias values (Qin, Li, Gao, & Zhang, 2006).
TIRS, the performance of the split-window algorithm (SWA) is better
RD = gain × DN + bias (2)
than that of mono-window algorithms (MWA) (Jiménez-Muñoz,
Sobrino, Skoković, Mattar, & Cristóbal, 2014; Song et al., 2015). So in where RD is the radiance of the cell value, gain and bias are value for a
this study, we used SWA to estimate LST from TIRS aboard Landsat-8. specific band in the header file. Then the radiance is converted
The SWA is derived from a first-order Taylor-series linearization of the brightness temperature without atmospheric correction.
radiative transfer equation (Yu, Privette, & Pinheiro, 2007) and its K2
formulation takes the general form (Qin, Dall'Olmo, Karnieli, & T= K
ln( RD1 +1) (3)
Berliner, 2001): i

Table 2
LST statistics of urban wetlands.
Name Area of Edge temperature Lowest Wetland Shape Area of Average height Area of Density of
water (ha) (oC) temperature (oC) connectivity index vegetation (ha) of building (m) building (ha) building (%)

Bayi Reservoir 143 32.2 26.8 1 1.49 1.7 5 3.5 1.6

Changchun Park 4.2 34.8 30 0 1.13 52.8 10.5 5.0 6.8
Chaoyang Park 3.5 38 31.2 0 1.86 14.4 11.1 8.2 17.6
Fuqiang Reservoir 47.3 33.9 26.8 1 1.32 0.0 5 0.0 0.0
Guanlanhu Park 14.9 35.8 29.1 1 3.05 10.4 5.8 3.2 4.7
Hongqi Reservoir 14.3 36.4 27.5 1 1.16 0.0 5 0.2 1.6
Jinjiang Park 2.1 34.7 31.4 0 1.06 10.9 20.2 1.9 6.9
Jingyuetan Lake 397.5 30.5 25.8 0 2.76 133.6 5.1 2.9 0.1
Laodong Park 3.7 38.9 31.9 0 1.31 3.9 11.4 3.6 25.4
Nanhu Park 85.9 34.7 26.3 1 2.06 181.0 12.1 9.9 3.5
Shengli Park 2.4 37.2 31.1 0 1.55 21.3 12.8 6.7 13.6
Wildlife Garden 11.1 35.4 29.1 0 1.68 66.8 11 10.3 10.2
Tongxinhu Park 13.6 33.9 27.6 1 1.33 2.6 9 1.9 3.6
Xixin Reservoir 88 33.1 26.9 1 1.23 0.0 5 1.8 0.9
Xinglong Reservoir 6.2 34.2 28.3 1 1.23 17.0 5.4 8.3 5.2
Yanming Lake 25 34.5 27.4 0 1.51 21.2 7.3 6.8 4.9
Yitong River 640.4 33.6 24.6 1 7.54 642.5 5.4 62.5 5.5
Youyi Park 8.7 33.9 28.7 1 1.60 5.3 12 63.9 116.7
Zhengyanghu Park 2.5 38.5 31.2 0 1.69 7.3 13.5 13.1 26.2
Gongqingtuan Park 0 36.3 32.7 0 1.19 4.1 10.3 2.6 31.8
Daishan Park 0 37.1 31.6 0 1.16 10.3 12 2.6 23.5
Yu Park 0 38.5 30.6 0 1.17 15.1 12.4 7.9 25.5
Songhua River 2090.5 33.2 19.3 1 6.33 187.1 6.9 109.3 4.9
Wende River 54.8 31.5 26 1 4.92 0.2 5.1 5.4 4.6

Note: in the Wetland connectivity column, 1 for connect and 0 for disconnect.

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Z. Xue et al.
where T is the brightness temperature, K1 and K2 are constants. RDi is
the radiance of the band 10 and 11 of Landsat 8.
2.3.2. Land surface emissivity
In contrast to the ocean emissivity, the land surface emissivity is
significantly different for the varying vegetation heterogeneity, soil
moisture, roughness and viewing angle (Salisbury & D’Aria, 1994).
Currently, several methods have been proposed to retrieve the emis-
sivity for different sensors. NDVI-based emissivity method (NBEM) for
emissivity estimation from the infrared and visible band has been dis-
cussed in detail and successfully applied to various sensors (Dash,
Göttsche, Olesen, & Fischer, 2002; Li et al., 2013; Snyder, Wan, Zhang,
& Feng, 1998; Yu et al., 2014). In this study, we used the NBEM by
normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) derived from the
Landsat-8 OLI to estimate the land surface emissivity of TIRS bands as
the following equations:
a1 + bi NDVI < 0.2
red
i = vi Pv + si (1 Pv ) + Ci 0.2 NDVI 0.5
vi + Ci NDVI > 0.5
2
NDVI NDVImin
pv =
NDVImax NDVImin
where ρred is the reflectance of red band (bang 4), Pv is the vegetation
fraction, εs and εv is the emissivity of soil and vegetation, ai, bi, Ci is the
essential coefficients, which is given by Yu et al. (2014).
2.3.3. Atmospheric transmittance
Based on the multilayer radiative transfer code MODTRAN4.0, the
relationship between vertical column water vapor content and atmo-
spheric transmittance were investigated in mid-latitude summer and
1976 standard US atmospheric profile (see Table 2) (Mao, Qin, Shi, &
Gong, 2005). In this study, vertical column water vapor content ne-
cessary for the SWA were obtained from the MODIS product (MOD07)
temporally and spatially coincident to the Landsat-8 overpass. The time
Terra/MODIS overpass was 10:30 AM (Beijing time) on July 4, 2016, at
nearly the same time as the Landsat-8. Thus, the atmospheric trans-
mittance was calculated using the mid-latitude summer formula of
Table 3.
2.4. Descriptors of urban wetland and CE
In order to quantitatively measure CE of wetland, we built 40 buf-
fers with a distance of 50 m from the edge of every wetland, covering a
distance of 2000 m. The mean LST for every buffer was extracted by
overlaying buffer layer with LST images. To identify the edge of the CE
for every wetland, we profiled and curved the mean LST of buffers vs
distance, and defined the first inflection point as “edge temperature” of
the CE for the wetland. Then, based on the value of the “edge tem-
perature”, the cooling capability index (CCI) was calculated by the
following formula:
i=1
CCI = (A × (Te Ti ))
n (5)
where CCI is cooling capability index. A is the area of pixeli (900 m in
Table 3
The relationship between atmospheric transmittance and water vapor.
Profile Estimation Equation
1976US standard τ10 = −0.1146w + 1.0286
τ11 = −0.1568w + 1.0083
Mid-Latitude summer τ10 = −0.1134w + 1.0335
τ11 = −0.1546w + 1.0078
Landscape and Urban Planning 182 (2019) 92–100
this study); Te is edge temperature; Ti is temperature of pixeli; n is pixel
number.
To facilitate analysis, the CCI value of all 24 wetlands and green
spaces were normalized between 0 and 1, where 0 means minimum
effect and 1 means maximum effect, according to the formula (6). The
result of normalization was named as normalized cooling capability
index (NCCI).
(CCI-MIN)
NCCI=
(MAX-MIN) (6)
where CCI is the cooling capability index value; MIN is the minimum of
the CCI value; MAX is the maximum of the CCI value.
The shape index was adopted to analyze the influence of cooling-
effect by wetland shape, and is described as follows:
P
SI = 2
A (7)
where SI is the shape index; P is the perimeter of wetland; A is the
wetland area. SI increases as the shape of a patch become more irre-
(4-1) gular.
The average slope of the LST curve between the original point and
edge for every wetland was calculated to indicate the cooling efficiency
(4-2) (CEE). All the average slopes of wetlands were normalized between 0
and 1, where 0 means minimum efficiency and 1 means maximum ef-
ficiency, accordingly to the formula (8) and defined as normalized
cooling efficiency index (NCEI).
(CEE-MIN)
NCEI=
(MAX-MIN) (8)
where MIN is the minimum of the CEE, MAX is the maximum of the
CEE.
3. Results
3.1. Extent and intensity of the UHI effect
Meteorological data from 1981 to 2011 of the two weather stations
collected in this study illustrates the rising trend of LST in Changchun
City and Jilin City (Fig. 2-a). In the past 30 years, the annual mean
ground temperature of Changchun City has risen 4 °C, from 5.9 °C to
9.9 °C, and that of Jilin City has risen 4.6 °C, from 5.7 °C to 10.3 °C.
After 2001, the trend of warming in both cities has significantly ac-
celerated. Under urban sprawl and climate warming, the UHI effect in
Changchun City and Jilin City has become serious in recent years.
Fig. 2-b illustrates LST is highly correlated with the building volume
with R2 of 0.733.
The average hourly temperature on 4th July 2016 recorded by
weather stations shows the LST in Changchun reached a peak at 13:00
with the maximum LST 56.1 °C. While the LST in Jilin reached a peak at
12:00 with the maximum LST 40.4 °C (Fig. 3). Peak values of UHI are
mainly located in these open spaces surrounded by tall buildings with
high building density (Fig. 4-C). Spatial distribution of LST over
Changchun City and Jilin City is shown in Fig. 4. For Changchun City
(Fig. 4-A), the LST ranged between 20.7 °C and 52.8 °C. For Jilin City
2
(Fig. 4-B), the LST ranged between 16.4 °C and 47.2 °C. The lowest
temperature was recorded from the surface of water bodies in wetlands,
while the highest LST comes from built-up areas. The vegetated areas
record an average temperature of 32 °C in Changchun City and 29.3 °C
in Jilin City. The mean LST of 21 urban wetlands was 26.6 °C, lower
than that of three urban green spaces (31.6 °C). For wetland type, the
R2 mean LST of rivers (23.3 °C) is lower than that of reservoirs (27.3 °C)
and lakes (29.3 °C).
0.9882
0.9947
3.2. The NCCI and NCEI of urban wetlands’ CE
0.986
0.996
Fig. 5 shows the edge points of urban wetlands and green spaces.
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Fig. 2. Annual mean ground temperature of Changchun City and Jilin City during the period from 1981 to 2011.

Fig. 3. The average hourly temperature on 4th July 2016 in Changchun and Jilin.

Fig. 4. LST maps of Changchun City and Jilin City.

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Fig. 5. Min, mean and max LST in each buffer outside the 24 wetlands and green spaces and edge points.

Fig. 6. NCCI of 24 wetlands and green spaces.

The distance between edge points to wetland or green space shows the
extent of CE. For the 24 wetlands and green spaces in this study, the
extent of CE ranges from 1000 m of Jingyuetan lake to 150 m of Hongqi
Reservoir and Xixin Reservoir, with an average distance of 371.1 m. The
mean distance of lakes (434 m) was the furthest, followed by that of
rivers (400 m), green spaces (300 m) and reservoirs (280 m). The mean
cooling ability of urban wetlands was 2.74 °C, ranging from 6.36 °C in
Songhua River to 1.27 °C in Jinjiang Park. The mean cooling ability of
three green spaces was 2.54 °C.
Fig. 6 represents NCCI (normalized volume values of the 24 wet-
lands and green spaces) in Changchun City and Jilin City. The NCCI of
Songhua River is the highest (1.0), followed by Jingyuetan Lake (0.24)
and Yitong River (0.18), and Gongqingtuan Park is the lowest (0). The
NCCI of Songhua River is nearly 1128 times higher than that of
Gongqingtuan Park. The mean NCCI of rivers is highest (0.4), followed
by lakes (0.027), reservoirs (0.019) and green spaces (0.0018). Fig. 7
shows NCEI of all 24 wetlands and green spaces. The top three most
efficient wetlands are Hongqi Reservoir (1.0), Xixin Reservoir (0.99)

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Fig. 7. NCEI of 24 wetlands and green spaces.

Table 4
Spearman's Rho Correlations between indexes of CE and wetland characteristics.
Index Area of Edge temperature Lowest Wetland Shape index Area of Average height of Area of Density of
water temperature connectivity vegetation building building building

NCCI 0.947** −0.182 −0.158 0.536** 0.553** 0.457* −0.416* 0.168 −0.625**
NCEI −0.081 0.044 −0.105 0.393* −0.239 0.067 −0.215 −0.129 −0.038

** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

* Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).

Fig. 8. Hydrologic connectivity of urban wetlands in Changchun City in 1950 and 2015.

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and Tongxinhu Park (0.82). The mean NCEI of reservoirs is 0.65, higher
than that of green spaces (0.58), rivers (0.44) and lakes (0.31).
3.3. Correlation analysis of the NCCI and NCEI with the wetland
characteristics
On average, larger wetlands are cooler than smaller ones, while the
CE of urban wetlands is more related to the characteristics of urban
wetlands. For example, the area of Bayi Reservoir (143 ha) is larger
than that of Nanhu Park (85.9 ha), but the NCCI of Bayi Reservoir
(0.038) is lower than that of Nanhu Park (0.055). Still, the Spearman
Rho is 0.947 (p < 0.01) and 0.457 (p < 0.05) between NCCI and area
of water and vegetation, respectively. There is a positive relationship
between NCCI and Shape index, and the Spearman Rho is 0.533
(p < 0.05). Strong negative correlation has been observed between
NCCI and building characteristics, −0.416 (p < 0.05) with an average
height of the building and −0.625 (p < 0.01) with the density of the
building. Wetland connectivity is positively correlated to NCCI and
NCEI of wetlands, and the Spearman Rho is 0.536 (p < 0.01) and
0.393 (p < 0.05), respectively (Table 4).
4. Discussion
4.1. Implications for urban wetland design and management
The general conviction that air temperature in urban wetlands can
be cooler than non-wetlands has been confirmed by many studies (Li &
Yu, 2014; Sun et al., 2012; Wu, Ye, Shi, & Clarke, 2014). Intensive
evaporation from wetlands could increase air humidity and then reduce
the temperature of surrounding areas (Gunawardena, Wells, &
Kershaw, 2017; Zhao, Lee, Smith, & Oleson, 2014). The results from this
study indicate that temperatures close to wetlands are getting reduced
about by 2.74 °C in comparison to surrounding areas; the effect of urban
wetlands on the temperature of cities was determined by urban wetland
area, shape, connectivity, and type. The size of wetlands is the most
important element for explaining reducing air temperature. In addition,
a more complex shape is preferable for CE of wetlands. Furthermore,
the results of this study also indicated that the hydrologic connectivity
of wetlands is another important factor for CE. Hydrologic connectivity
of wetlands determines in part their water renewal rate and hydrologic
functions (Ameli & Creed, 2017; Golden et al., 2014). The average NCCI
of wetlands connected to other surface waters is 0.11, nearly six times
higher than that of isolated wetlands without surface inlets or outlets.
The NCCI of Yitong River is 0.18, only one-sixth that of Songhua River,
for it has been in no flow condition for years due to upstream reservoir
construction. Fig. 8 shows hydrologic connectivity of wetlands of
Changchun City in 1950 and 2015. Urbanization has reduced hydro-
logic connectivity between wetlands and rivers through the construc-
tion of dams and roads. To increase the capacity of CE of urban wet-
lands, wetlands should be designed more natural and environmentally
friendly with considerable area and complexity. Therefore, effective
measures such as dam removal and reconnection of wetlands to rivers
should be taken to improve the CE of urban wetlands.
4.2. Implications for urban planning
The relationships between LST, CE, and urban building metrics have
important implications for urban planning and management. Previous
research has shown that land use change caused by urbanization is the
primary driving factor of UHI (Li et al., 2017; Ryu & Baik, 2012). Our
results indicated high building volume contributes to the accumulation
of heat. Meanwhile, buildings surrounding wetland and greenspace can
significantly limit the extent of CE. Limiting the volume, height, and
density of buildings around wetland and green space could be effective
measures for mitigating the UHI effect. In this study, the average area of
urban wetlands is 24.4 times larger than that of urban green spaces, but
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Landscape and Urban Planning 182 (2019) 92–100
the average NCCI of urban wetlands is 42.3 times higher than that of
urban green spaces. Although the temperatures closed to green spaces
are getting reduced less than those of wetlands, by about 2.53 °C, ve-
getation around or in wetlands performs significant functions including
maintaining water quality and quantity in wetlands, improving air
quality, directly shading buildings, and providing aesthetic value. To
maximize the CE, it is important to build more wetland parks combined
with increased tree cover in both cities to maximize cooling via both
evapotranspiration and shading. Our results also show that, although
Songhua River has the highest NCCI, the extent of its' CE is only 300 m,
which is limited by the river bank. For Jilin City, more wetlands con-
nected to Songhua River should be designed. For Changchun City,
special attention should be paid to the spatial arrangement of urban
wetlands for urban planning.
4.3. Limitation and future research directions
The results of this study are affected by several limitations. First, the
temporal resolution and spatial resolution of the Landsat-8 TIRS are
deficient for studying the whole process of UHI. By using Landsat-8
TIRS of 100-meter resolution, the spatial heterogeneity of LST could
fade. Moreover, images used in this study taken around 10:21 AM could
not demonstrate LST characteristics at night. It has been reported that
some urban wetlands may exacerbate UHI during the night over the hot
seasons (Gunawardena et al., 2017; Steeneveld, Koopmans,
Heusinkveld, & Theeuwes, 2014). Second, the process of heat transfer
between wetlands and atmosphere in urban areas is influenced by other
factors such as vegetation type, precipitation, irrigation, humidity, and
wind flow etc. Also, this study only focuses on the shape index of
wetlands. Therefore, more research is needed with high spatial and
temporal resolution LST data and more monitoring data about the hy-
drologic connectivity of wetlands to reveal the cooling-effect of urban
wetlands on their surroundings.
5. Conclusions
In this study, 21 urban wetlands and 3 green spaces in Changchun
City and Jilin City were selected to measure the capability of mitigating
UHI by using Landsat-8 TIRS data. The results show that CE of urban
wetlands was significantly correlated to the wetland area, shape, and
hydrologic connectivity. In contrast, the characteristics of surrounding
buildings such as volume, height, and density could limit the CE of
urban wetlands. Our findings have important implications for wetland
design and urban planning. Reconnection of urban wetlands to rivers
could be a cost-efficient way to mitigate UHI effects. High volume,
height and density buildings surrounding urban wetlands should be
avoided in urban planning.
Acknowledgements
Research funding was provided by the National Key Research and
Development Program of China (2016YFC0500401, 2016YFA0602303);
the National Science Foundation of China (41671087, 41671081,
41471081). Northeast Institute of Geography and Agroecology, CAS (IGA-
135-05)
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