Urban heat island effect in preserved zones of history and culture in old city of Beijing, China

Urban heat island (UHI) refers to the phenomenon of the higher atmospheric temperature in the central urban area than the surrounding rural area, which makes the urban like a warmer island compared with the rural area. The vector data of 25 preserved zones and second ring road were overlain to the land surface temperature image. The UHI intensity in each zone and the old city is the difference between the averaged land surface temperature and the rural land surface temperature. Our results showed that the averaged urban heat island intensity in the preserved zones of history and culture was lower than that of the old city. But the UHI intensity in some zones such as Dongbolichang, Dashilan, and Dongluguxiang were very big. Because there were high density of buildings in these zone. The smallest UHI intensity is in the Huangcheng zone which might be resulted from the large areas of water body and green land.