IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/osf/eartha/t9s3g.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Emergent self-similarity and scaling properties of fractal intra-Urban Heat Islets for diverse global cities

Author

Listed:
  • Shreevastava, Anamika
  • Rao, P. Suresh C.
  • McGrath, Gavan

    (Department of Biodiversity Conservation and Attractions)

Abstract

Urban areas experience elevated temperatures due to the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect. However, temperatures within cities vary considerably and their spatial heterogeneity is not well characterized. Here, we use Land Surface Temperature (LST) of 78 global cities to show that the Surface UHI (SUHI) is fractal. We use percentile-based thermal thresholds to identify heat clusters emerging within SUHI and refer to them collectively as intra-urban heat \textit{islets}. The islets display properties analogous to that of a percolating system as we vary the thermal thresholds. At percolation threshold, the size distribution of these islets in all cities follows a power-law, with a scaling exponent ($\beta$) of 1.88 ($\pm 0.23, 95\% CI$) and an aggregated Perimeter Fractal Dimension ($D$) of 1.33 ($\pm 0.064, 95\% CI$). This commonality indicates that despite the diversity in urban form and function across the world, the urban temperature patterns are different realizations with the same aggregated statistical properties. Furthermore, we observe the convergence of these scaling exponents as the city sizes increase. Therefore, while the effect of diverse urban morphologies is evident in smaller cities, in the mean, the larger cities are alike. Lastly, we calculate the mean islet intensities, i.e. the difference between mean islet temperature and thermal threshold, and show that it follows an exponential distribution, with rate parameter, $\lambda$, for all cities. $\lambda$ varied widely across the cities and can be used to quantify the spatial heterogeneity within SUHIs. In conclusion, we present a basis for a unified characterization of urban heat from the spatial scales of an urban block to a megalopolis.

Suggested Citation

  • Shreevastava, Anamika & Rao, P. Suresh C. & McGrath, Gavan, 2019. "Emergent self-similarity and scaling properties of fractal intra-Urban Heat Islets for diverse global cities," Earth Arxiv t9s3g, Center for Open Science.
  • Handle: RePEc:osf:eartha:t9s3g
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/t9s3g
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://osf.io/download/5d69ccf780f9b50016630f71/
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.31219/osf.io/t9s3g?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gangopadhyay, Kausik & Basu, B., 2009. "City size distributions for India and China," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 388(13), pages 2682-2688.
    2. Luis Bettencourt & Geoffrey West, 2010. "A unified theory of urban living," Nature, Nature, vol. 467(7318), pages 912-913, October.
    3. Marta C. González & César A. Hidalgo & Albert-László Barabási, 2009. "Understanding individual human mobility patterns," Nature, Nature, vol. 458(7235), pages 238-238, March.
    4. K. Oleson & A. Monaghan & O. Wilhelmi & M. Barlage & N. Brunsell & J. Feddema & L. Hu & D. Steinhoff, 2015. "Interactions between urbanization, heat stress, and climate change," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 129(3), pages 525-541, April.
    5. Diego Rybski & Elsa Arcaute & Michael Batty, 2019. "Urban scaling laws," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 46(9), pages 1605-1610, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Yuexia Han & Bin Dong & Zhili Xu & Jianshen Qu & Hao Wang & Liwen Xu, 2024. "Identification of Thermal Environment Networks in the Wanjiang Urban Agglomeration Based on MSPA and Circuit Theory," Land, MDPI, vol. 13(10), pages 1-21, October.
    2. García-Miguel, Carmen & San Martín, Jesús, 2021. "Covering fractals with constant radius tiles: Distribution functions and their implications for resource management," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dominik Hartmann & Flavio L. Pinheiro, 2022. "Economic complexity and inequality at the national and regional level," Papers 2206.00818, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2022.
    2. Gaspar Manzanera-Benito & Iñigo Capellán-Pérez, 2021. "Mapping the Energy Flows and GHG Emissions of a Medium-Size City: The Case of Valladolid (Spain)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(23), pages 1-29, November.
    3. Meryl Jagarnath & Tirusha Thambiran & Michael Gebreslasie, 2020. "Heat stress risk and vulnerability under climate change in Durban metropolitan, South Africa—identifying urban planning priorities for adaptation," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 163(2), pages 807-829, November.
    4. Jeong-Hui Park & Eunhye Yoo & Youngdeok Kim & Jung-Min Lee, 2021. "What Happened Pre- and during COVID-19 in South Korea? Comparing Physical Activity, Sleep Time, and Body Weight Status," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(11), pages 1-13, May.
    5. Matteo Böhm & Mirco Nanni & Luca Pappalardo, 2022. "Gross polluters and vehicle emissions reduction," Nature Sustainability, Nature, vol. 5(8), pages 699-707, August.
    6. Huang, Siyu & Shi, Yi & Chen, Qinghua & Li, Xiaomeng, 2022. "The growth path of high-tech industries: Statistical laws and evolution demands," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 603(C).
    7. David Kofoed Wind & Piotr Sapiezynski & Magdalena Anna Furman & Sune Lehmann, 2016. "Inferring Stop-Locations from WiFi," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(2), pages 1-15, February.
    8. Zhou, Xingang & Yeh, Anthony G.O. & Yue, Yang, 2018. "Spatial variation of self-containment and jobs-housing balance in Shenzhen using cellphone big data," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 102-108.
    9. Joao Meirelles & Camilo Rodrigues Neto & Fernando Fagundes Ferreira & Fabiano Lemes Ribeiro & Claudia Rebeca Binder, 2018. "Evolution of urban scaling: Evidence from Brazil," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(10), pages 1-15, October.
    10. Yan Yan & Hui Liu & Ningcheng Wang & Shenjun Yao, 2021. "How Does Low-Density Urbanization Reduce the Financial Sustainability of Chinese Cities? A Debt Perspective," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(9), pages 1-18, September.
    11. Zheng Yan & Wenqian Robertson & Yaosheng Lou & Tom W. Robertson & Sung Yong Park, 2021. "Finding leading scholars in mobile phone behavior: a mixed-method analysis of an emerging interdisciplinary field," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(12), pages 9499-9517, December.
    12. A. Haven Kiers & Billy Krimmel & Caroline Larsen-Bircher & Kate Hayes & Ash Zemenick & Julia Michaels, 2022. "Different Jargon, Same Goals: Collaborations between Landscape Architects and Ecologists to Maximize Biodiversity in Urban Lawn Conversions," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(10), pages 1-18, September.
    13. Duan, Zhengyu & Zhao, Haoran & Li, Zhenming, 2023. "Non-linear effects of built environment and socio-demographics on activity space," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    14. Varga, Levente & Tóth, Géza & Néda, Zoltán, 2017. "An improved radiation model and its applicability for understanding commuting patterns in Hungary," MPRA Paper 76806, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Elisa Frutos-Bernal & Ángel Martín del Rey & Irene Mariñas-Collado & María Teresa Santos-Martín, 2022. "An Analysis of Travel Patterns in Barcelona Metro Using Tucker3 Decomposition," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 10(7), pages 1-17, March.
    16. Zhai, Wei & Bai, Xueyin & Peng, Zhong-ren & Gu, Chaolin, 2019. "From edit distance to augmented space-time-weighted edit distance: Detecting and clustering patterns of human activities in Puget Sound region," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 41-55.
    17. Calderín-Ojeda, Enrique, 2016. "The distribution of all French communes: A composite parametric approach," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 450(C), pages 385-394.
    18. Brinkley, Catherine & Raj, Subhashni, 2022. "Perfusion and urban thickness: The shape of cities," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    19. Khajehnejad, Moein, 2019. "Efficiency of long-range navigation on Treelike fractals," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 102-110.
    20. Sebastián Bustos & Charles Gomez & Ricardo Hausmann & César A Hidalgo, 2012. "The Dynamics of Nestedness Predicts the Evolution of Industrial Ecosystems," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(11), pages 1-8, November.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:osf:eartha:t9s3g. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: OSF (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://eartharxiv.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.