Application of remote sensing methods on analysis of development-related urban thermal environment

Because of the ability of describing the spatial distribution of land surface temperatures and land use, remote sensing images have been used to analyze the relationship between urban heat island (UHI) due to the land development effect and land use changes in recent years. To analyze subtropical urban microclimates and realize the man-made heat change due to the effect of land development, we compared the temperatures of thermal environment before and after land use. Take Linkou new-towns of Taipei, Taiwan for example, we analyzed the data of remote thermal sensor from the satellite, Landsat ETM+, to calculate the difference of surface temperatures between the undeveloped status in 1990 and developed status in 2009. It was analyzed development-related temperatures change through before and after land use thermal character, which showed urban temperature would increase due to land development-related anthropogenic heat emission.