Science of the Total Environment 671 (2019) 1036–1046

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Science of the Total Environment

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

Impacts of urban configuration on urban heat island: An empirical study

in China mega-cities
Wenze Yue a,b, Xue Liu a, Yuyu Zhou c,⁎, Yong Liu d
a
Department of Land management, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, Zhejiang, China
b
Laboratory of Rural-Urban Construction Land Economical and Intensive Use, Beijing 100812, China
c
Department of Geological and Atmospheric Sciences, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011, USA
d
School of Construction Management and Real Estate, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400045, China

H I G H L I G H T S G R A P H I C A L A B S T R A C T

• We examined the effect of urban config-

uration on urban heat island intensities
in 36 China mega-cities.
• The relative relationship between day-
time UHI and nighttime UHI depends
on climatic zones and seasons.
• UHI variations were significantly influ-
enced by the division and shape com-
plexity of the built-up area.
• This study provides essential implica-
tion and perspectives of heat mitigation.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Urban configuration can influence the local thermal environment by altering energy balances. However,
Received 17 January 2019 previous studies have found that either sprawling urban or compact urban development could intensify
Received in revised form 13 March 2019 urban heat island (UHI) intensity. How urban configurations can mitigate the UHI intensity has drawn
Accepted 26 March 2019
full attention. In this study, we quantified the diurnal and seasonal UHI intensities in 36 cities in
Available online 28 March 2019
China and investigated their response to urban configurations. In each city, urban land cover maps
Editor: SCOTT SHERIDAN were classified from Landsat 8 and UHIs were quantified using Moderate Resolution Imaging
Spectroradiometer (MODIS) land surface temperature (LST). Results show that the average UHI intensi-
Keywords: ties of 36 cities vary temporally with a sequence of summer day N summer night N winter night N winter
Urban heat island day. Moreover, whether the daytime UHI is higher or lower than the nighttime UHI significantly depends
Urban configurations on climatic zones and seasons. Besides, we found that UHIs significantly correlate with urban configura-
Division tions in two ways. First, for the spatial structure among built-up patches, a lower UHI located in the
Shape complexity smaller built-up area with dispersed distribution when compared to the larger built-up patches, if the
Urban planning
total built-up area holds constant. Second, for the spatial structure of a single patch, the single patch
with more complex shape would mitigate the UHI intensities. Overall, urban configuration and other
control variables (e.g., urban characteristics and climatic condition) can explain 41% and 51% of the var-
iance in UHI in summer day and night, respectively. Therefore, the design of urban configuration can
serve as an essential practice to mitigate UHI intensity. Considering the difficulties of altering the

⁎ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: yuyuzhou@iastate.edu (Y. Zhou).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.03.421
0048-9697/© 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
 W. Yue et al. / Science of the Total Environment 671 (2019) 1036–1046
urban configuration in the urbanized area, planting vegetation might be a great choice to change the
urban contiguity and shape complexity with providing an extra cooling effect.
1. Introduction
The world has experienced continuing land urbanization and popu-
lation growth (Zhou et al., 2018a; Zhou et al., 2015). The global urban
area has increased from 0.23% in 1992 to 0.53% in 2013 (Zhou et al.,
2018a). By 2050, 66% of the population in the world is projected to
live in urban areas (United Nations, 2014). Numerous studies have indi-
cated that urban heat island (UHI) was significantly influenced by ur-
banization (Li et al., 2017; Peng et al., 2012; Zhou et al., 2014). Defined
as the higher temperature of urban areas as compared to that of their
surroundings, UHI is a commonly observed phenomenon in the cities
around the world (Hung et al., 2006; Peng et al., 2012; Zhou et al.,
2018b). It is thought to have adverse effects on increasing energy con-
sumption for cooling (Lowe, 2016; Zhao et al., 2012), enhancing anthro-
pogenic heat emissions (Debbage and Shepherd, 2015), affecting
ecological balances (Rizwan et al., 2008), and even posing severe threats
to human health in the context of global warming. (Li and Bou-Zeid,
2013; Meehl and Tebaldi, 2004; Stone, 2012; Zhou and Shepherd,
2010). These adverse influences impose new challenges for sustainable
urban planning, which appeals the great interest of policymakers,
urban planners, and scholars (Debbage and Shepherd, 2015; Huang
et al., 2009; Zhou et al., 2014). Therefore, it is significant to understand
the common characteristics of interactions between urbanization and
UHI.
Relative UHI studies can be generally categorized into two groups
based on their contents. In the first group, studies have focused on the
assessment of the UHI intensities in cities of different climate regions
and sizes with a high level of detail, which demonstrate that UHI exists
in most cities in the world (Gallo et al., 1993; Hung et al., 2006; Li et al.,
2004; Li et al., 2019; Miao et al., 2009; Peng et al., 2012). In the second
group, cross-sectional studies have attempted to achieve an under-
standing of the relationship between the UHI intensity and its biophys-
ical properties (e.g., NDVI) (Imhoff et al., 2010; Susca et al., 2011; Weng
et al., 2004), various descriptive indicators of cities (e.g., city size) (Hung
et al., 2006; Li et al., 2017; Zhou et al., 2013), and patterns of land cover
(e.g., land cover composition) (Chen et al., 2006; Ogashawara and Brum
Bastos, 2012; Weng et al., 2004). Numerous studies have documented
that land cover (land composition) is of importance in influencing UHI
intensities (Connors et al., 2013; Weng et al., 2004; Zhou et al., 2011).
For instance, impervious surfaces and bare land covers have highly cor-
related with high temperature while vegetation and water areas have
the opposite phenomenon (Ogashawara and Brum Bastos, 2012). How-
ever, how urban configurations (urban structures) influence the UHI in-
tensity remains controversial, which shows that either the “compact
cities” or the “sprawling cities” can enhance the UHI intensity.
In general, “compact cities” characterized by high density and short
commuting distances, have been associated with high UHI intensities
due to the high structural roughness reduces the convective heat re-
moval and produces a more pronounced UHI intensity (Coutts et al.,
2007; Oke, 1987; Rizwan et al., 2008; Schwarz, 2010; Schwarz and
Manceur, 2015). However, several studies observed that sprawling
urban expansion could enhance the UHI intensities as well
(Emmanuel and Fernand, 2007; Stone and Rodgers, 2001). The possible
reason is that sprawling urban development creates impervious sur-
faces, unlimited outward spread, extra energy consumption and dis-
perse expansion of lower density development (Burchell et al., 2005;
Stone and Rodgers, 2001). Existing studies have shown that either
“compact cities” or “sprawling cities” can enhance the UHI intensity.
How the UHI intensity can be alleviated is important (Debbage and
Shepherd, 2015; Zhou et al., 2017a).
1037
© 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Meanwhile, most studies exploring the influence of city configura-
tions on UHI have been conducted in developed areas, for instance,
North America (Debbage and Shepherd, 2015; Zhou et al., 2011) and
Europe (Schwarz and Manceur, 2015; Zhou et al., 2017a). The limited
studies in developing countries only focused on a single city or compar-
ison of several cities (Estoque et al., 2017; Wu et al., 2014; Xie et al.,
2013; Yan et al., 2014). The study of multi-cities analysis is still lacking
in developing countries, especially in China.
Due to the limitations mentioned above, the response of UHI to the
urban configurations is needed to extend the understanding of urban
spatial structure for urban planning in developing countries. The pri-
mary objective of this study was to investigate how UHI intensity re-
sponds to the various urban configurations based on diurnal and
seasonal UHIs in 36 mega-cities in China. Mainly, we attempted to an-
swer the following questions: (1) What are the spatial distribution of
UHI in China's mega-cities? (2) How do UHI intensities respond to the
urban configuration? The remainder of this paper describes the study
area and methods (Section 2), the UHI variation and the relationship re-
sults (Section 3), discussion (Section 4), and conclusions (Section 5).
2. Study area, data, and methods
2.1. Study area
China has experienced rapid urbanization from 19.4% to 52.6% be-
tween 1980 and 2012 with an uneven growth rate (Deng and Bai,
2014; Yang, 2013). The urban expansion in Chinese cities showed
both continuous and leapfrogged patterns (Schneider and Woodcock,
2008; Seto and Fragkias, 2005). Significant regional differences of ur-
banization indicate that China serves as an ideal case to examine the re-
lation between urban configuration and UHI.
In this paper, we chose 36 mega-cities of China, including 4 directly-
controlled municipalities under the State Council, 28 provincial capitals,
and 4 sub-provincial cities, because these cities represent the typical
areas of growth in their respective provinces and exhibit considerably
diverse urban forms (Fang et al., 2015) (Fig. 1). The boundary of each
city was defined by China's administrative districts in 2014. Besides,
these cities located in various climates, including humid, sub-humid,
semiarid, and arid conditions (Wu et al., 2005). To investigate the re-
gional variations of the UHI, these 36 cities were divided into eight re-
gions according to China's climatic zones (Wang et al., 2017) (Fig. 1).
2.2. Data and methods
This study acquired land surface temperature (LST) data and land
cover data from satellite, and regression analysis was used to evaluate
the contribution of urban configuration to UHI intensities in 36 mega-
cities. The following sections provided a detailed description of specific
data sources and methods for this analysis. First, the urban land cover
maps were derived from the classification of Landsat 8 images. Second,
UHIs as the dependent variables were obtained from Moderate Resolu-
tion Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) LST products. Third, the
selected landscape metrics were calculated to represent the indepen-
dent variables. Finally, stepwise multiple linear regression was per-
formed to investigate the relationship between UHIs and landscape
metrics.
2.2.1. Land cover classification
The primary dataset used in this study for classifying urban land
cover maps in 36 cities is the Landsat 8 images in 2014. This data
1038 W. Yue et al. / Science of the Total Environment 671 (2019) 1036–1046

Fig. 1. The location of 36 mega China's cities and eight climatic zones in this study.

product can provide cloud-free images with a spatial resolution of 30 m
× 30 m (http://www.usgs.gov/). The Landsat images were preprocessed
through re-projection, layer stacking, mosaic, histogram equalization
using ENVI version 5.1 (Fang et al., 2015).
We categorized the processed land cover maps into three types
(built-up, water, and other land) using eCognition Developer 9.0
through the method of multi-resolution segmentation, nearest neigh-
bor configuration, and visual interpretation. Followed the study of
Zhou et al. (2014), we defined the built-up land as impervious surfaces,
industrial area, and residential land of cities and towns. Water com-
prised of brooks, ponds, and rivers. Other land represented the remain-
ing types of land cover, including forests, grassland, cropland, and
unused land (Fig. 2a).
The accuracy of the land cover maps was evaluated in two ways.
First, the accuracies of the detailed maps were investigated using Google
Earth Pro® following the method of Zhou et al. (2012a). The kappa co-
efficients for the classifications of the 36 cities range from 0.81 to 0.95, in
which most of the cities were observed to be characterized by values
higher than 0.85. Second, the linear correlation between the built-up
area in the detailed classification maps and the statistical built-up area
derived from the China City Statistical Yearbook 2015 was high (with
R2 = 0.92). These two ways indicated that the land cover maps meet
the accuracy requirements in our study.
2.2.2. Dependent variable
MODIS LST data (https://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/) were used to quan-
tify the UHI intensity in this study. LSTs were derived from the EOS-
Aqua-MODIS Version 5 LST composite products at a spatial resolution
of 1 km (MYD11A2) for each city corresponding with urban maps. The
LST data with 8-day intervals contain local daytime (~13:30) and night-
time (~01:30) temperature observations for both summer and winter
using a generalized split-window algorithm (Wan and Dozier, 1996).
The high level of accuracy of the MODIS LST data has been confirmed
by several studies (Rigo et al., 2006; Wan, 2014). The 2014 diurnal
 W. Yue et al. / Science of the Total Environment 671 (2019) 1036–1046 1039

Fig. 2. The method to derive urban and suburban areas in this study, taking Beijing as an example. Land cover map was acquired from Landsat image in 2014 with a spatial resolution 30 m
(a), built-up land was extracted as the urban area (b), the urban boundary was generated by eliminating the gaps, caused by green spaces, water, and the agricultural lands, within the
urban area (c), and the purple area representing the suburban area was generated as the same size as the urban area (d). (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure
legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

(day and night) and seasonal (summer and winter) UHI intensities
were calculated individually for each city. Summer was defined as the
period between June and August, whereas winter was defined as the pe-
riod from December to February. Images from these periods which had
the fewest missing pixels were selected.
UHI was chosen as the dependent variable in this study as a critical
parameter in urban climate studies. LST from MODIS dataset was first
examined to determine whether UHI patterns were presented in this
study area. This study defined the UHI intensity as the average urban
area LST subtracts the surrounding average suburban area LST in each
city (Zhou et al., 2014; Li et al., 2018a). The urban area in this study
was defined as the built-up area in the land cover data. There are
many gaps within the urban area, which are caused by green spaces,
water, even the agricultural lands. If the urban area was used to gener-
ate a buffer directly, parts of the buffer could locate in these gaps, which
could cause inaccurate estimation of the suburban area. In hence, after
first extracted the built-up area from the land cover classification
(Fig. 2b), we eliminated the gaps within the built-up area to generate
the continuous polygons called urban boundary (Fig. 2c). A buffer
zone surrounding the built-up areas urban boundary excluding the
water and built-up pixels, with the same size as that of the built-up
area (instead of the urban boundary), was defined as the suburban
area (Fig. 2d). A zonal statistics method was used to extract the average
LST of the urban area (instead of the urban boundary) and suburban
area, respectively. Finally, the difference of average LST between the
urban area and the suburban area was calculated as UHI intensity.
The seasonal and diurnal LST maps in Beijing are shown in Fig. 3.
Specifically, the black and purple lines were used to show the approxi-
mate extent of urban area and suburban area, since the urban area
and suburban area are too complicated and discontinuous to draw in
this figure.
2.2.3. Independent variables
Five key and widely used metrics were selected to evaluate shape
complexity, spatial contiguity, fragmentation and division to capture
characteristics of urban configuration (Connors et al., 2013; Debbage
and Shepherd, 2015; Fang et al., 2015). These metrics contain largest
patch index (LPI), area-weighted mean shape index (AWMSI), area-
weighted mean fractal dimension index (AWMFDI), contiguity index
(CI), and landscape division index (LDI) (Table 1).
LPI represents the area of the largest patch area of the built-up area
divided by the total built-up area, which estimates the degree of urban
dominance in the landscape (McGarigal and Marks, 1994). AWMSI is
used to calculate the complexity of urban patches according to their
area (Huang et al., 2009). AWMFDI depicts the degree of complexity
of the urban patch shapes; the higher the value of the fractal dimension
index, the more complex is the shape of the urban area. CI assesses the
spatial connectedness of cells within a grid-cell patch to provide an
index on the patch boundary configuration and the patch shape
(LaGro, 1991). LDI is based on the cumulative patch area distribution.
LDI is zero when the landscape comprises only a single patch and ap-
proaches one when the focal patch type contains small patches in one
cell in the area. These five configuration variables were calculated at
the class level using FRAGSTATAS 4.2 (McGarigal et al., 2012).
Additionally, previous studies found that city characteristics and the
climatic condition can influence UHI intensity as well (Debbage and
Shepherd, 2015; Li et al., 2017; Oke, 1982). In this study, the total
urban area, number of built-up patches and aridity index were derived
1040 W. Yue et al. / Science of the Total Environment 671 (2019) 1036–1046

Fig. 3. The spatial pattern of LST (°C) in Beijing during summer daytime (a), summer nighttime (b), winter daytime (c), and winter nighttime (d). The black line represents the smoothed
urban boundary. The area outside the black line but within the purple line represents the smoothed suburban area. The purpose of these simplified lines is to improve the quality of this
image since the precise urban area and suburban area in Fig. 2 are too complicated to display. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the
web version of this article.)

as control variables. The total urban area (TUA) measures the sum of
urban built-up areas, whereas the number of the built-up patches
(NBP) denotes the number of built-up patches.
Regarding the climatic condition, aridity was estimated using (De
Martonne, 1926) aridity index (Eq. (1)). The monthly average precipita-
tion and temperature of each city were obtained from climatic data col-
lection (http://www.tianqi.com/).
IAR ¼ P=ðT þ 10Þ
where P is the monthly mean precipitation measured in millimeters and
T is the monthly mean air temperature measured in degree Celsius.
Summer (June to August) and winter (December to February) mean
aridity index was calculated in each city from the corresponding
monthly aridity index values. The index approaching 0 indicates that
the environment is becoming arider. Finally, all independent variables
were normalized to zero mean and unit standard deviation using X  ¼ ð
X−XÞ=δX before inclusion in the regression analysis. Where X is the
mean and δX is the standard deviation.
2.2.4. Statistical analysis
ð1Þ To explore the associations between the dependent variable and the
independent variables, we employed the stepwise multiple linear re-
gression model to estimate the relative contribution of each configura-
tion variables on various UHIs. This approach involved independent
variables and dependent variables. Specifically, the independent vari-
ables refer to all urban configurations and controls to urban

Table 1
Equations and descriptions of the urban configurations.

Indicators Equation Description

LPI maxnj¼1 ðaij Þ aij = area (m2) of patch ij

LPI ¼ ð100Þ TA = total built-up area (m2)
TA
AWMSI n 0:25pij aij pij = perimeter of patch ij
AWMSI ¼ ∑ j¼1 ½ð pffiffiffiffiffi Þð n Þ
aij ∑ j¼1 aij aij = area (m2) of patch ij
AWMFDI n 2 ln ð0:25Þpij aij pij = perimeter of patch ij
AWMPFD ¼ ∑ j¼1 ½ð Þð n Þ
ln aij ∑ j¼1 aij aij = area (m2) of patch ij
z
CI ½
∑r¼1 cijr
−1 cijr = contiguity value for pixel r in patch ij
aij
CI ¼ v = sum of the values in a 3 × 3 moving window
v−1 aij∗ = area of patch ij in terms of number of cells
LDI Xm X n
aij 2 aij = area (m2) of patch ij
LDI ¼ ½1− ð Þ  TA = total built-up area (m2)
i¼1 j¼1
TA
 W. Yue et al. / Science of the Total Environment 671 (2019) 1036–1046
characteristics and climatic conditions obtained from Section 2.2.3. The
dependent variables refer to diurnal and seasonal UHI intensities ob-
tained from Section 2.2.2. There were four dependent variables of inter-
est: 2014 summer day UHI intensity, 2014 summer night UHI intensity,
2014 winter day UHI intensity, and 2014 winter night UHI intensity. The
general linear regression could be described as Eq. (2):
ΔT ¼ a  LPI þ b  AWMSI þ c  AWMFDI þ d  CI þ e  LDI þ f
 TUA þ g  NBP þ h  IAR þ ε
where ΔT is the UHI intensity, a-h are the regression coefficients, and ε is
the stochastic error of the regression.
After the stepwise multiple linear regression analysis, all the variable
inflation factors (VIFs) of significant variables will be calculated to de-
termine whether there is collinearity.
3. Results
3.1. Spatial distributions of UHI intensities
3.1.1. UHI intensities in 36 cities
The UHI intensities in China's 36 cities spatially and temporally vary
significantly (Fig. 4). Overall, the cities in the south, east, and northeast
parts show a higher UHI than those in other regions during summer
daytime, while the cities in the west, south, and central-west parts
show a higher UHI than counterparts during the summer nighttime
(Fig. 4a and b). The UHI intensities of 36 cities are all positive in both
day and night. The average day and night UHI intensities in the sum-
mertime vary from 0.6 °C to 5.3 °C and from 0.3 °C to 2.1 °C, respectively.
The city of Hefei shows the strongest daytime UHI intensity, followed by
Kunming, and Changchun. Most cities (88%) during the summer day
have UHI intensities larger than 2 °C. Meanwhile, the strongest night-
time UHI intensity occurs in Nanning, followed by Taiyuan, and Shen-
yang (N1.9 °C). 21 of 36 cities during the summer night have UHI
intensities larger than 1 °C. Most cities (92%) have the positive diurnal
UHI difference (DUD, day UHI minus night UHI), indicating the summer
day UHIs in these cities are higher compared to the summer night
(Fig. 4c). Cities located in the east of China have a higher DUD compared
to those in the west region. The significant positive summer DUDs are
found in Hefei (4.7 °C), followed by Changchun (3.6 °C) and Kunming
(3.6 °C).
Fig. 4. Urban heat island (UHI) intensities of 36 mega China cities in summer day (a), summer night (b), diurnal UHI difference (DUD) in summer (c), winter day (d), winter night (e), DUD
in winter (f).
1041
In 2014 winter, the UHIs exhibit different spatial patterns from sum-
mer. Cities in north and south parts show a higher UHI than those in the
west and central parts during the winter day, while cities in the west
and central parts show a higher UHI compared to those in the east
part. The winter day and night UHI intensities vary from −1.6 °C
(Lhasa) to 1.7 °C (Fuzhou) and from −1.5 °C (Taiyuan) to 2.5 °C
(Urumqi), respectively (Fig. 4d and e). The city of Fuzhou has the stron-
gest winter daytime UHI intensity, followed by Haikou and Shenzhen
(N1.5 °C). The winter day UHI intensities of over 63% cities in the winter
ð2Þ
day are between 0 and 1 °C. Unlike the daytime UHI distribution, the
strongest nighttime UHI intensity occurs in Harbin, followed by Urumqi,
and Lanzhou (N2.0 °C). 27 of 36 cities during the winter night have UHI
intensities larger than 1 °C. 58% of cities have a negative winter DUD,
which means that these cities have stronger night UHI than day UHI in
the winter. Generally, cities in the south part have a higher DUD than
those in the north part. The most significant negative DUDs in the win-
ter are found in Hohhot (−3.0 °C) followed by Lanzhou (−2.8 °C) and
Harbin (2.0 °C), where all belongs to the north region (Fig. 4f).
3.1.2. UHI intensities in different climatic zones
We summarize the seasonal and diurnal UHI intensities across dif-
ferent climatic zones (Table 2). The South subtropics/tropics zone (3.3
°C), Middle subtropics zone (3.4 °C), and North subtropics zone (3.1
°C) exhibit higher UHI than Warm temperate zone (2.7 °C), Temperate
zone (2.6 °C), and Qinghai-Tibet plateau zone (2.3 °C) in summer day-
time (Table 2). In contrast, cities located in Warm temperate zone (1.5
°C), Temperate zone (1.2 °C), and Qinghai-Tibet plateau zone (1.3 °C)
exhibit higher the summer night-time UHI as compared to subtropics
or tropics zones. In the winter daytime, the UHI intensities show the
similar sequence as the summer day that cities located in subtropics
and tropics zones experience higher UHI than those in temperate
zones or highland climate zones (i.e., Temperate, Warm temperate,
and Qinghai-Tibet plateau zone). During the winter night, the UHI in-
tensities of six climatic zones demonstrated a distinct spatial pattern
compared to the summer night. Cities in Temperate zone (1.9 °C),
South subtropics/tropics zone (0.9 °C), and Middle subtropics zone
(0.7 °C) experience more intense winter night UHI than those in
Warm temperate zone, North subtropics zone, and Qinghai-Tibet pla-
teau zone.
In general, the average UHI intensities of 36 cities vary temporally
with a sequence of summer day N summer night N winter night
N winter day (Table 2). Although this sequence changes in different
1042 W. Yue et al. / Science of the Total Environment 671 (2019) 1036–1046

Table 2 daytime UHI intensity except LDI. LDI has a significantly negative influ-
The mean and standard deviation of diurnal and seasonal UHI intensities (°C) across the ence on UHI with the partial slope coefficient of −0.44. IAR with a posi-
different climatic zonesa.
tive effect on UHI has a partial slope coefficient of 0.57. These results
Region Summer Summer Winter Winter indicate that the climatic condition has a more extensive influence on
day night day night the UHI than the urban configuration. The negative coefficient of LDI in-
Temperate zone (I) 2.6 ± 1.4 1.5 ± 0.4 0.2 ± 0.8 1.9 ± 0.9 dicates that UHI decreases when the division of urban patches become
Warm temperate zone (II) 2.7 ± 0.8 1.2 ± 0.5 0.5 ± 0.3 0.7 ± 1.0 larger, holding other variables constant. The positive coefficient of IAR
North subtropics zone (III) 3.1 ± 1.1 0.8 ± 0.2 0.5 ± 0.4 0.4 ± 0.4
indicates that UHI increases when the environment is becoming wetter,
Middle subtropics zone (IV) 3.4 ± 0.5 0.9 ± 0.4 0.8 ± 0.4 0.7 ± 0.4
South subtropics/tropics zoneb (V) 3.3 ± 1.2 1.0 ± 0.5 1.3 ± 0.4 0.9 ± 0.4 keeping other variables steady. The LDI and climatic variables have ex-
Qinghai-Tibet plateau zone (VI) 2.3 ± 0.3 1.3 ± 0.1 −1.0 ± 0.6 0.8 ± 0.6 plained approximately 41% of the variation in summer day UHI at a
China 2.9 ± 1.1 1.1 ± 0.5 0.5 ± 0.7 0.9 ± 0.9 0.01 significance level. Collinearity is minimal since the variance infla-
a
Cold temperate zone is not displayed in the table because there is no city in this cli- tion factors (VIFs) for summer daytime model both equal to 1.
matic zone; Meanwhile, approximately 51% of the variation in UHI is explained
b
There is only one city (Haikou) locates in Tropics zone, given the similar climatic by urban configurations in summer night model (SN, Table 3). Three
condition, the cities located in South subtropics and Tropics zone are combined in one
configuration variables are significantly correlated with summer night
group.
UHI intensity at the 99% significant level. Among those configuration
variables, LDI is the most important one with a coefficient equals to
−0.4 at a 0.01 significance level, which means that LDI has a signifi-
climatic zones, there still exist several commonalities. UHI intensities cantly negative influence on UHI after controlling other significant var-
during the summer day are higher than the corresponding summer iables. This result is consistent with the summer day model and shows
night in all climatic zones (Table 2). Meanwhile, the DUD in winter the LDI is the dominant configuration variable in summer. Besides,
shows a distinct distribution. The average winter day UHI is higher AWMFDI becomes a negative factor influencing UHI intensity. Increas-
than mean winter night UHI in I, II, and VI, while it shows the opposite ing AWMFDI accompanies the decrease of UHI with coefficient equals
result in III, IV, and V (Table 2, Fig. 5). Following these commonalities, to −0.34. Meanwhile, CI shows an opposite relation on UHI with the co-
we divided the climate zones into two groups: Temperate/highland efficient equals to 0.21 in summer night model. Besides, collinearity
zone (I, II, and VI) and Subtropics/tropics zone (III, IV, and V), with 18 does not exist among the significant independent variables since the
cities in each group (i.e., the yellow boundary in Fig. 5). The 3D histo- VIFs are b1.6.
grams show a significant difference in average UHI sequence patterns. All configuration variables and control variables are not significantly
The large difference mainly results from the fact that the UHI in winter correlated with UHI during the winter daytime, indicating that the var-
day was less intense than those in winter night for nearly 78% cities in iation of UHI cannot be explained by the selected independent variables
Temperate/highland zone, while only 7 of 18 cities has the same nega- (WD, Table 3). Since no significant variable that can explain the varia-
tive DUD in Subtropics/tropics zone (Table 2, Fig. 5). tion of UHI intensity, there is no collinearity.
Winter night model performs better than the winter day model.
3.2. Response of UHI intensities to urban configuration However, there is still no configuration variable correlated with
UHI in this model (WN, Table 3). IAR is the only significant variable
Results from the stepwise multiple linear regressions indicate that with a positive correlation with UHI, which is consistent with the re-
variables of urban configurations are essential predictors of UHI. Overall, sult from the summer day model. The difference is that the influence
the two summer models perform better, with over 40% (41% and 51%) of AI on UHI in winter night (coefficient = 0.34) is lower than the
of the variability in UHI intensity explained, compared to the two winter one in summer day (coefficient = 0.57), which means that IAR has
models (Table 3). LSI, AWMSI, and TUA are not included in Table 3 due a weaker influence on winter night UHI intensity than the summer
to their insignificant influence on UHIs in these models. day. Approximately 11.1% of the variation in UHI has been explained
There are two significant independent variables in the stepwise mul- in the winter night model at a 0.05 significance level. Since there is
tiple linear regression of summer daytime (SD, Table 3). All of the con- only one significant variable in winter night model, there is no collin-
figuration variables show an insignificant correlation with summer earity either.

Fig. 5. Seasonal and diurnal average UHIs in climatic zones in 2014.

 W. Yue et al. / Science of the Total Environment 671 (2019) 1036–1046 1043

Table 3
The summary of four stepwise multiple linear regression models.⁎

Variables AWMFDI CI LDI IAR NBP R2 Adjusted-R2 F-statistic

SD – – −0.44⁎⁎⁎ 0.57⁎⁎⁎ – 0.45 0.41 13.32⁎⁎⁎

SN −0.34⁎⁎⁎ 0.21⁎⁎⁎ −0.40⁎⁎⁎ – 0.16⁎⁎ 0.55 0.51 9.49⁎⁎⁎
WD – – – – –
WN – – – 0.34⁎⁎ – 0.14 0.11 5.38⁎⁎

SD stands for summer day, SN stands for summer night, WD stands for winter day, and WN stands for winter night.
- Independent variables not entered into the stepwise regression model.
⁎ Sig. level 0.05 b p b 0.1.
⁎⁎ Sig. level 0.01 b p b 0.05.
⁎⁎⁎ Sig. level p b 0.01.

4. Discussion
4.1. The contrast of UHI between daytime and nighttime
There is no correlation between daytime and nighttime UHI in sum-
mer (R2 = 0.00, P = 0.83) and winter (R2 = 0.00, P = 0.99), suggesting
that the factors driving UHI during the day are different with those dur-
ing the night (Fig. 6a and b). Previous studies usually analyzed the main
drivers of UHI by comparing the surface energy exchange between
urban and suburban areas (Arnfield, 2003; Oke, 1987). The surface en-
ergy balance model can be expressed as: net all-wave radiation + an-
thropogenic heat releases = sensible heat fluxes + latent heat fluxes
+ surface heat storage + net heat advection (Arnfield, 2003; Oke,
1987). Among these components, net all-wave radiation and anthropo-
genic heat are the two significant sources of energy available to cause
UHI (Peng et al., 2012; Zhou et al., 2012b).
During the summer, the net all-wave radiation coming from the sun
is the primary heat source (Arnfield, 2003; Rizwan et al., 2008). During
the cloud-free daytime, the urbanized area with large impervious sur-
face and less vegetation coverage could induce a decrease in latent
heat flux and an increase in sensible heat flux, which could cause a
higher LST in the urbanized area. However, the suburban area has a sig-
nificant temperature reduction with a high vegetation coverage due to
the evaporation cooling effects (Susca et al., 2011; Weng et al., 2004;
Peng et al., 2012). Hence, the LST is higher in urban areas and lower in
their surrounding areas during the summer day. Meanwhile, the surface
structures including impervious surfaces, roof, irrigated gardens, green
space can capture solar radiation to a different extent with more heat
storage in urban areas compared to surrounding areas (Kato and
Yamaguchi, 2005; Rizwan et al., 2008). At night, the LST is related to la-
tent heat flux from the ground to the atmosphere (Voogt and Oke,
2003). Urban areas and their surrounding areas both release heat at
night, decreasing the LST. However, because of high heat storage in
urban areas, the DUD in summer is positive as well. At the same time,
we found that the UHI in the summer daytime is higher than that in
the summer nighttime in all climatic zones. The possible reason could
be the higher thermal conductivity of urban areas than surrounding
areas (Weng, 2001). These difference in thermal conductivity could
cause a faster decreasing in LST of urban areas than that in the suburban
area—formation of a lower UHI at night. These results are consistent
with Zhou et al. (2014) that all six geographical regions have positive
DUDs in summer.
All the 36 cities in the northern hemisphere have a low solar altitude
in winter, which could reduce the amount of shortwave radiation and
decrease the LST in the urban area (Du et al., 2016). Moreover, due to
the climate condition, the low vegetation in the winter does not provide
a cooling effect in the suburban areas as the summer time. These rea-
sons probably induce the winter daytime UHI intensities are usually
very low, even appear negative in Lhasa and Xining. Meanwhile, the
UHI in winter night is a combination of the heat store during the day
and anthropogenic heat during the night (Peng et al., 2012). It is
worth noting that the Chinese government will provide central heating
to the northern cities located in Temperate/highland regions, indicating
that the urban areas in those regions are continuing to release heat at
night, making the night UHIs are higher than their corresponding day
UHI.
4.2. Impacts of urban configuration on UHI intensities
Our results exhibit that the diurnal and seasonal UHI intensities are
driven by different urban configurations. The effects of urban configura-
tions on UHI intensities can be discussed as two aspects: the contiguity
between different built-up patches and the shape complexity of single
built-up patch.
4.2.1. Contiguity of built-up patches
LDI represents the degree of division between built-up patches. The
higher the LDI, the higher division of built-up patches. The stepwise

Fig. 6. The relationship between daytime and nighttime UHI in summer (a) and winter (b).
1044 W. Yue et al. / Science of the Total Environment 671 (2019) 1036–1046
multiple linear regression models have indicated that the negative in-
fluence of LDI on the UHI variations during summer time. The partial
slope coefficients show that LDI is the second important variable of
explaining UHI intensity in the summer day and the most important
one in the summer night, respectively. Considering the difficulty in al-
tering the climatic condition, LDI is undoubtedly the most influential
variable in summertime among those urban configurations. Besides, CI
represents the degree of contiguity between built-up patches, the
higher the CI, the higher the contiguity of built-up patches. The CI has
a significantly positive influence on UHI only in summer night at a
0.01 significance level. The negative effect of LDI and the positive effect
of CI suggest that UHI decreases with the increase of the division among
the urban patches.
These results show that a lower UHI is found in a smaller built-up
area with dispersed distribution when compared to larger built-up
patches, if the total built-up area holds constant. These findings are con-
sistent with the hypothesis that dispersed urban distributions drive the
decrease of UHI since more compact urban clusters tend to have larger
contiguity of built-up patches (Coutts et al., 2007; Debbage and
Shepherd, 2015; Schwarz and Manceur, 2015; Zhou et al., 2011). Qual-
itatively, it is comprehensible that urban sprawl can lead to smaller con-
tiguity, hence cause mitigation of UHI (Zhou et al., 2017a). The
explanation can involve that clustered built-up distribution rather
than disperse pattern may have less interaction with cooler UHI,
which could decrease the energy flow (Schwarz and Manceur, 2015).
On the other hand, the clustered pattern has a larger population capac-
ity than disperse one, which could generate more anthropogenic heat
emission (Peng et al., 2012).
4.2.2. Shape complexity of singe built-up patch
AWMFDI represents the degree of shape complexity, the higher the
AWMFDI, the more complex shape of the built-up patch. AWMFDI ex-
hibits a negative influence on UHI in summer night at a 0.01 significance
level, which indicates that a single patch with complex shape would de-
crease the intensity of the UHI intensities. It is logical, therefore, that
more complex configurations of built-up land would cause a more ex-
tensive interface with surrounding areas where usually covered by
woody or vegetation (Voogt and Oke, 1998). The increase in shape com-
plexity of plant accompanied with increasing shape complexity of built-
up area could enhance the interactions between vegetation and the
built-up regions and facilitate the heat exchange, resulting in UHI miti-
gation (Xu and Yue, 2008). However, this result contrasts with previous
work conducted with Baltimore that showed that the shape index of
buildings has a positive effect on LST (Zhou et al., 2011).
It should be noted that Zhou et al. (2011) only focused on patch level
in one city in the U.S. However, we used the 36 individual mega-cities to
exhibit the overall trends, which could cause scale effects. Besides, a
study conducted with Baltimore and Sacramento showed indirect evi-
dence that increasing shape complexity (edge density) of trees may en-
hance energy flow and exchange between trees and their surrounding
areas (Zhou et al., 2017b). These results improve the understanding of
inconsistency of effects of spatial configuration of built-up area on UHI.
4.2.3. The relative importance of urban configuration variables
The relative importance of urban configuration variables on UHI var-
ied significantly among the four times. Urban configuration variables
could explain around 41% and 51% of the variation in UHI in the sum-
mertime. However, the same variable had an insignificant effect on
the winter UHI. These results indicated that the impact of urban config-
uration on UHI might vary by season with different climatic conditions.
Among the urban configuration variables, LDI is the only significant
urban configuration variable in predicting summer day and summer
night UHI. This result is consistent with many of previous studies that
have found the spatial contiguity of urban development (or the degree
of compactness) play an essential role in influencing UHI (Debbage
and Shepherd, 2015; Zhou et al., 2017a). Hence, LDI is the most crucial
configuration variable in 36 mega-cities. In addition, an increase in
AWMFDI is the second significant variable in predicting summer night
UHI. Indirect evidence has shown that the edge density of vegetation
cover was found to be positively correlated with LST (Li et al., 2013;
Zhou et al., 2017b). CI has the weakest influence on the variation of
UHI since it has the smallest partial slope coefficient.
4.3. Implications in UHI mitigation
This study indicates that the influence of UHI can mitigate by opti-
mizing the spatial configurations of built-up areas. The findings have
unique insights into urban design and management with important im-
plications for urban planners and managers.
4.3.1. Theoretical implications
We found that optimizing urban configurations can mitigate UHI in-
tensity. Specifically, for the spatial structure among the built-up
patches, the increasing spatial division of built-up mainly decreases
UHI intensity, while increasing contiguity of the built-up area increases
UHI intensity. For the spatial structure of a single built-up patch, the in-
creasing shape complexity will decrease the UHI intensity. All these re-
sults demonstrate that more divided and complex urban patches could
mitigate the UHI during summer when cities are most vulnerable to
heat waves. Based on the above results, urban planning simply increas-
ing the urban contiguity or encouraging infill development is not an ef-
ficient UHI mitigation strategy. Additionally, advocating for developing
more simple urban patches as a UHI mitigation implication is problem-
atic since it will increase UHI intensity further.
4.3.2. Practical implications
In general, divided and complex shape of urban patches develop-
ment can potentially reduce the UHI intensity based on our statistical
models. However, there must be very difficult to divide the urban pat-
tern and change the shape in reality, especially in the urbanized area
(Kaiser et al., 1995).
Meanwhile, vegetation has been considered to mitigate UHI in previ-
ous studies (Susca et al., 2011; Weng et al., 2004; Yuan and Bauer, 2007;
Zhou et al., 2011). The amount and spatial distribution of vegetation will
enhance the ecosystem and reduce the impact of urbanization (Li et al.,
2013; Weng et al., 2004). Compared to directly removing the impervi-
ous surface, planting vegetation in urbanized area is a very practical
and cost-effective method that vegetation will increase the division of
urban development pattern and provide an extra cooling effect via
evapotranspiration (Debbage and Shepherd, 2015; Li et al., 2013;
Zhou et al., 2017b; Zhou et al., 2011). According to Debbage and
Shepherd (2015), smaller green spaces distributed throughout an
urban area provide more decrease in the urban contiguity than that pro-
vided by a single park of larger size and increase the interaction of built-
up area with cooler regions. Therefore, planting smaller networks of
vegetation could be a significant part of the mitigation of the UHI
intensity.
5. Conclusions
Understanding the relationship between urban heat island (UHI)
and urban configurations is critical for supporting urban planning to de-
sign effective practices to mitigate the influence of UHI. This study has
investigated the diurnal and seasonal UHI intensities and quantified
their response to the urban configuration in China's 36 cities. Overall,
the average UHI intensities of 36 cities vary temporally with a sequence
of summer day N summer night N winter night N winter day.
The results indicate that the difference between the daytime and the
corresponding nighttime UHI depends on the climatic conditions. In the
summer, daytime UHI is higher compared to nighttime in all climatic
zones. While in the winter, there is a distinct pattern with a higher
nighttime UHI in Temperate/highland zone and a higher daytime UHI
 W. Yue et al. / Science of the Total Environment 671 (2019) 1036–1046
in Subtropics/tropics zone. Moreover, the impact of urban configuration
on UHI varies significantly with seasons. Urban configurations, urban
characteristics, and the climatic condition can explain 41% and 51% of
variations in UHI intensities in summer day and summer night, respec-
tively. In contrast, urban configurations show an insignificant effect on
UHI intensity in the winter. Among urban configurations, LDI exhibits
the most negatively significant influence on the summer day and
night UHI intensities. AWMFDI exhibits a significant influence on a sum-
mer night UHI, while CI exhibits a positive influence. These results sug-
gest that UHI intensities can be significantly changed by the
configuration (spatial structure) of built-up patches. For instance, the
increase in the built-up area division and the shape complexity can sub-
stantially decrease the UHI intensity. Hence, the UHI can be mitigated by
optimizing the urban configurations.
However, it is difficult to remove or change the existing impervious
surfaces, especially in the urbanized area. Therefore, planting vegetation
in the urban core area is an effective way to change the urban contiguity
and edge shape with providing an extra cooling effect. The smaller and
dispersed vegetation distributed in the urbanized area can mitigate UHI
significantly (Debbage and Shepherd, 2015). These implications provide
insights to urban managers regarding urban heat island mitigation
through designing urban configuration for the area where urbanization
is continuing.
It is worth mentioning that urban configuration is not the only direct
driving factor of UHI. Previous studies have found that land cover fea-
tures, cloud coverage, and wind speed can influence the UHI intensity
as well (e.g., Connors et al., 2013; Liu and Weng, 2009; Weng et al.,
2007; Zhou et al., 2011). Moreover, the LST data with limitations such
as mixed pixels and gaps can be improved in future studies (Li et al.,
2018b). Finally, we only focused on the mega-cities of China in this
study. Future research on the relationship between urban configuration
and the UHI intensity is recommended for other cities in China and
other countries.
Acknowledgments
This work has been supported by the Strategic Priority Research Pro-
gram of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Pan-Third Pole Environment
Study for a Green Silk Road (Pan-TPE) (No: XDA20040400), National
Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41671533, 41771543 and
41871169), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universi-
ties, and China Scholarship Council (No. 201806320202).
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