The rapid urban expansion and associated land cover conversions in the last two decades call for an urgent need for developing advanced analytical and quantitative methods to manage the adverse impacts on urban ecology and climate.
The lower landscape connectivity, higher land cover fragmentation and increase in higher surface temperatures in urban areas are largely a consequence of surface energy balance alteration triggered by the replacement of natural land covers like green spaces, wetlands with built areas, and impervious surfaces. These spatial-temporal variability changes have detrimental and significant impacts on the local and regional urban climate challenges that require both new Geospatial Analytic approaches and new sources of data and information.
Emerging Geospatial technologies (Big Data, Cloud Computing, Google Earth Engines, Advanced Machine Learning Algorithms and Deep learning) offer great opportunities to acquire ubiquitous spatial data, continuous observations, and monitoring of the earth’s surface, detect the spatiotemporal patterns of changes in the landscape and urban climate and make predictions and scenarios for future urban ecology and surface temperature trends.
Additionally, advances in sensors and increasingly precise spatial data (e.g., Unnamed Aerial Vehicles and High-resolution imagery) allow for improved spatial representations of the landscape network and landscape structure (Morphological Spatial Pattern Analysis, Graph Theory, Least Cost Analysis) for assessing the combined effects of habitat loss and landscape connectivity declines on urban ecology and urban microclimates changes.
This Research Topic will welcome original and innovative research articles and review papers related to advances in GIS and remote sensing of the spatial-temporal variability impacts of the landscape pattern of land cover on urban climate and urban ecology research.
The aim is to guide judicious urban planning and landscape design, address warming and cooling of the increasingly urbanized landscape, restoration of fragmented urban habitats, improve urban thermal comforts, and maintain liveability, habitability, and healthier favorable eco-environmental quality conditions in urban areas.
We welcome submissions including (but not limited to):
1. Spatiotemporal variation of the urban thermal environment
2. Impact of urban form (compactness/dispersed) on cooling and warming in cities
3. Effects of landscape structure of land cover in mapping urban ecosystem services using high-resolution data
4. Supply and demand of cooling effects of blue and green space infrastructure and mitigation of urban heat island effects
5. Impacts of land cover fragmentation and loss on urban surface temperature
6. Impact of land cover spatial resolution and scale on cooling and warming effect of the urban environment
7. City and urban park cooling effects and their driving factors
8. Hotspot analysis (e.g., Getis Ord Gi*) of land systems architecture (green spaces, built areas, paved surfaces) on urban climate
9. Spatial regression model comparisons in predicting impacts of land cover on urban heat mitigation
10. Use of 2D (forest fragmentation models, landscape pattern indices) and 3D fragmentation metrics derived from remote sensing data in mapping urban habitat and biodiversity loss
11. New graph-based habitat and landscape connectivity indices (Morphological Spatial Pattern Analysis) impact on urban surface temperature
12. Impacts of land systems architecture change and landscape connectivity (Graph theory, Circuit theory, Least cost analysis, Least cost path) in cities under multiple green network infrastructure conservation scenarios
13. Urban thermal comfort trends and eco-environmental conditions in cities
The rapid urban expansion and associated land cover conversions in the last two decades call for an urgent need for developing advanced analytical and quantitative methods to manage the adverse impacts on urban ecology and climate.
The lower landscape connectivity, higher land cover fragmentation and increase in higher surface temperatures in urban areas are largely a consequence of surface energy balance alteration triggered by the replacement of natural land covers like green spaces, wetlands with built areas, and impervious surfaces. These spatial-temporal variability changes have detrimental and significant impacts on the local and regional urban climate challenges that require both new Geospatial Analytic approaches and new sources of data and information.
Emerging Geospatial technologies (Big Data, Cloud Computing, Google Earth Engines, Advanced Machine Learning Algorithms and Deep learning) offer great opportunities to acquire ubiquitous spatial data, continuous observations, and monitoring of the earth’s surface, detect the spatiotemporal patterns of changes in the landscape and urban climate and make predictions and scenarios for future urban ecology and surface temperature trends.
Additionally, advances in sensors and increasingly precise spatial data (e.g., Unnamed Aerial Vehicles and High-resolution imagery) allow for improved spatial representations of the landscape network and landscape structure (Morphological Spatial Pattern Analysis, Graph Theory, Least Cost Analysis) for assessing the combined effects of habitat loss and landscape connectivity declines on urban ecology and urban microclimates changes.
This Research Topic will welcome original and innovative research articles and review papers related to advances in GIS and remote sensing of the spatial-temporal variability impacts of the landscape pattern of land cover on urban climate and urban ecology research.
The aim is to guide judicious urban planning and landscape design, address warming and cooling of the increasingly urbanized landscape, restoration of fragmented urban habitats, improve urban thermal comforts, and maintain liveability, habitability, and healthier favorable eco-environmental quality conditions in urban areas.
We welcome submissions including (but not limited to):
1. Spatiotemporal variation of the urban thermal environment
2. Impact of urban form (compactness/dispersed) on cooling and warming in cities
3. Effects of landscape structure of land cover in mapping urban ecosystem services using high-resolution data
4. Supply and demand of cooling effects of blue and green space infrastructure and mitigation of urban heat island effects
5. Impacts of land cover fragmentation and loss on urban surface temperature
6. Impact of land cover spatial resolution and scale on cooling and warming effect of the urban environment
7. City and urban park cooling effects and their driving factors
8. Hotspot analysis (e.g., Getis Ord Gi*) of land systems architecture (green spaces, built areas, paved surfaces) on urban climate
9. Spatial regression model comparisons in predicting impacts of land cover on urban heat mitigation
10. Use of 2D (forest fragmentation models, landscape pattern indices) and 3D fragmentation metrics derived from remote sensing data in mapping urban habitat and biodiversity loss
11. New graph-based habitat and landscape connectivity indices (Morphological Spatial Pattern Analysis) impact on urban surface temperature
12. Impacts of land systems architecture change and landscape connectivity (Graph theory, Circuit theory, Least cost analysis, Least cost path) in cities under multiple green network infrastructure conservation scenarios
13. Urban thermal comfort trends and eco-environmental conditions in cities