Researchers from the College of Forestry at BFU, have developed an innovative thermal network model to address urban heat island (UHI) effects, with findings published in Sustainable Cities and Society (IF=10.5). The study, titled "Spatiotemporal characteristics and robustness analysis of the thermal network in Beijing, China", introduces a network-based approach to identify critical heat risk zones in megacities.

With the acceleration of the process of urbanization, the urban heat island effect (UHI) is seriously impacting the ecological environment. At present, only a few studies have specifically analyzed the flow trajectory of heat, the change of heat sources, and the complexity of heat. Therefore, the city of Beijing, China, is used as a case study to analyze the mitigation of the UHI effect in large cities.

The results show that: (1) the range of the sub-high-temperature zone fluctuated greatly, and the area proportion of four years (2003, 2013, 2018, and 2022) was 28.60 %, 35.53 %, 21.35 %, and 35.17 %, respectively; (2) the heat sources gradually aggregated and the heat corridors were gradually ordered from 2003 to 2022; and (3) the connectivity robustness initially decreased and then increased. When 76 points were removed from random attacks, connectivity robustness began to increase. Application of the above research and analysis will help planners and decision makers to quickly locate high-risk and critical areas of heat islands. It also regulates the urban thermal environment by optimizing the composition of heat source sites and the linkages between heat sources, providing an important reference for future urban planning and ecological protection as well as sustainable development.

The first author of the paper is Cao Xiang, a master student from the College of Forestry, and Professor Raffaele Lafortezza and lecturer Feng Fei are the co-corresponding authors.This study is funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 32401370), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 3247130870), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (BLX 202201) and 5·5 Engineering Research & Innovation Team Project of Beijing Forestry University (BLRC2023B06).

Paper link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2024.106092

Written by Feng Fei
Translated and edited by Song He
Reviewed by Yu Yangyang