Spatiotemporal changes of urban heat island effect relative to land surface temperature: a case study of Jinan City, China.

The urban heat island (UHI) effect has become increasingly prevalent and significant with the accelerated pace of urbanization, posing challenges for urban planners and policymakers. To reveal the spatiotemporal variations of the urban heat island effect in Jinan City, this study utilized Landsat satellite images from 2009, 2014, and 2019, employing the classic Mono-Window algorithm to extract land surface temperature (LST). Additionally, Geodetector was introduced to conduct a detailed analysis of the relationship between LST in Jinan City and land cover types (vegetation, water bodies, and buildings). The results indicate a significant increase in the severity of the urban heat island effect in Jinan from 2009 to 2019, with the central urban area consistently exhibiting a high-intensity core heat island. Suburban areas of Jinan show a clear trend of merging their heat island effects with the central urban area. The combined area of strong cool island effect zones and cool island effect zones within water bodies reaches 89.7%, while the combined proportion of heat island and strong heat island effect zones in building areas is 62.2%. Vegetation cover (FVC) exerts the greatest influence among all factors on the intensity level of the urban heat island effect. These findings provide a reliable basis for decision-making related to urban planning and construction in Jinan City.