27 JAN 2026 (TUE) 14:35 - 15:05

Decoupling Urban Warming from Economic Growth through Land‑Use and Land‑Cover Dynamics: A Multi‑Scale Perspective

Mr Li Yiyan  

( Supervisor: Prof Hongsheng Zhang )

Abstract:

In the urbanization process of the 21st century, balancing economic growth and environmental issue has become a central challenge for urban construction. Economic growth brings a range of benefits, including increased income, improved social welfare, and enhanced infrastructure. However, it also results in various environmental problems. Decoupling environmental issues from economic development has thus emerged as a key issue for achieving sustainable urban development. The urban heat island (UHI) effect, a major urban environmental issue, refers to the phenomenon whereby urban areas are warmer than their surrounding areas. It not only increases energy consumption but also reduces thermal comfort and poses an undeniable threat to public health. Although a large amount of research has focused on its physical driving mechanisms, discussions on decoupling UHI from economic growth are still limited. Meanwhile, land use data contain both physical surface and economic activity information, offering a unique potential to reveal the decoupling mechanism of economic development-environment issue. However, this potential has yet to be systematically explored, limiting the development of spatial planning and policy tools aimed at achieving economic development–environmental issue decoupling. 

To address these research gaps, this study proposes to integrate remote sensing techniques, interpretable machine learning, and landscape analysis methods to investigate the impact of land use and land cover (LULC) pattern on UHI-GDP decoupling relationship across local, national, and global scales. The research focuses on three core research questions: (1) How urban LULC pattern affect the UHI at regional scale? (2) What is the development pattern of urban LULC in global and Chinese cities? (3) How urban LULC change affect the UHI-GDP decoupling relationship? 

Our preliminary findings suggest that: at the local scale, land use is the most critical factor influencing UHI, and land use mix significantly contributes to UHI stability. At the global scale, the number of cities with a strong decoupling between UHI and GDP shown an increase trend. These types of cities are more likely to occur in the Global North. In contrast, many cities in the Global South remain in states of expansive negative decoupling or weak decoupling, highlighting the differences between the Global North and the Global South in terms of urban sustainable development.