Changing trajectory of urban heat islands in Shenzhen, China

It is difficult to describe the locations change of urban heat islands in multiple centers cities because of high fragmentation. We analyzed the changing trajectory of urban heat islands in a multiple centers city, Shenzhen in China in 1986, 1995, and 2005. By using generalized single-channel method, surface temperature were derived from Landsat TM data. Urban heat islands were defined by Local indicator of spatial association method for describing energy aggregation character. Changing trajectory of UHIs was described by locations of UHIs centroids. The change trajectory analysis showed that the change of UHIs distribution was similar as the direction of urban expansion. In the rapidly urbanization period, UHIs expands from urban center to the edge, while the most important change in steady urbanization period is intensity increase of UHIs.