Assessment of Urban Thermal Environments Using a Combination of the Local Climate Zone and Landscape Ecological Metrics in Taipei City

The urban heat island effect has become a common meteorological phenomenon in urban areas in recent years. Research on urban thermal environments has used various technologies, such as remote sensing, on-site/mobile measurement, and model simulation. This study employed satellite images to comprehensively identify the correlations between thermal environments and the urban morphology in Taipei, Taiwan. This study applied the local climate zone (LCZ) scheme to classify urban land types by surface characteristics. The LCZ classification result was used as the basic unit for assessing and calculating urban forms by the landscape ecological metrics (LEM). For the thermal environment information, this study collected air temperature data by mobile measurements and combined it with records from weather stations. The results showed that different urban form compositions were associated with thermal environments. Built-up areas with higher levels of edge density tended to have higher heat intensity. For two regions with the same proportion of green spaces and built environments, the temperature varies with different configurations. This study can evaluate the urban thermal environments and assist urban planners who do not have a meteorological background in finding urban climate issues and developing heat mitigation strategies.