Comparative and combinative study of urban heat island in Wuhan City with remote sensing and CFD simulation

Abstract

Urban heat islands are one of the most critical urban environment heat problems. Landsat ETM+ satellite data were used to investigate the land surface temperature and underlying surface indices such as NDVI and NDBI. A comparative study of the urban heat environment at different scales, times and locations was done to verify the heat island characteristics. Since remote sensing technology has limitations for dynamic flow analysis in the study of urban spaces, a CFD simulation was used to validate the improvement of the heat environment in a city by means of wind. CFD technology has its own shortcomings in parameter setting and verification, while RS technology is helpful to remedy this. The city of Wuhan and its climatological condition of being hot in summer and cold in winter were chosen to verify the comparative and combinative application of RS with CFD in studying the urban heat island. © 2008 by the authors; licensee Molecular Diversity Preservation International.