Cooling effect of rivers on metropolitan Taipei using remote sensing.
This study applied remote sensing technology to analyze how rivers in the urban environment affect the surface temperature of their ambient areas. While surface meteorological stations can supply accurate data points in the city, remote sensing can provide such data in a two-dimensional (2-D) manner. The goal of this paper is to apply the remote sensing technique to further our understanding of the relationship between the surface temperature and rivers in urban areas. The 2-D surface temperature data was retrieved from Landsat-7 thermal infrared images, while data collected by Formosat-2 was used to categorize the land uses in the urban area. The land surface temperature distribution is simulated by a sigmoid function with nonlinear regression analysis. Combining the aforementioned data, the range of effect on the surface temperature from rivers can be derived. With the remote sensing data collected for the Taipei Metropolitan area, factors affecting the surface temperature were explored. It indicated that the effect on the developed area was less significant than on the ambient nature zone; moreover, the size of the buffer zone between the river and city, such as the wetlands or flood plain, was found to correlate with the affected distance of the river surface temperature.
Department of Civil Engineering, National Taipei University of Technology, Taipei 10608, Taiwan. yenchen@ntut.edu.tw.
Yen-Chang
YC
Chen
Information Division, Agricultural Engineering Research Center, Taoyuan 32061, Taiwan. chtan@aerc.org.tw.
Chih-Hung
CH
Tan
Experimental Forest, National Taiwan University, No.12 Chien-Shan Rd. Sec.1 Jushan Township, Nantou 55750, Taiwan. d87622005@ntu.edu.tw.
Chiang
C
Wei
Department of Civil Engineering, National Taipei University of Technology, Taipei 10608, Taiwan. chen.yenchang@gmail.com.
Zi-Wen
ZW
Su
D002947:Cities; D058998:Remote Sensing Technology; D045483:Rivers; D013624:Taiwan; D013696:Temperature