Land Use and Key Drivers of Urban Heat Patterns: A Remote Sensing Approach

Dear Colleagues,

Urban areas are undergoing rapid transformation driven by changes in land use, urban expansion, densification processes, and changes in land cover composition, profoundly altering the physical structure of cities and the functioning of urban territorial systems, with direct consequences for the surface energy balance, land surface temperature patterns, and exposure to urban heat. Understanding how changes in land use, land cover, and urban morphology influence urban thermal behavior is therefore essential for sustainable land management and climate-sensitive urban planning.

Remote sensing and geospatial analysis provide a powerful framework for monitoring land use dynamics, urban form evolution, and their impact on surface thermal responses across multiple spatial and temporal scales. In particular, multi-temporal datasets on land use and land cover (e.g., CORINE Land Cover or Urban Atlas) enable us to study how land transformation processes, such as soil sealing, vegetation loss, or functional land conversion, influence the intensity and spatial variability of Surface Urban Heat Island (SUHI) phenomena.

Urban morphological characteristics, including building height, density, vegetation structure, and surface materials, serve as key land-related drivers that modulate thermal responses within cities. Linking these land attributes with remotely sensed thermal observations allows for a deeper understanding of land–climate interactions in urban environments, supporting evidence-based land use planning and mitigation strategies.

Consequently, the aim of this Special Issue is to collect high-quality research articles and reviews that promote the monitoring, quantification, and interpretation of urban thermal dynamics determined by land use and land cover, through the combined use of remote sensing, GIS-based modeling, and urban morphological analysis.

Furthermore, the Special Issue aims to highlight innovative methods, datasets, and conceptual frameworks that reveal how changes in land systems affect surface temperature patterns, heat island intensity, and microclimate variability in urban areas.

This Special Issue welcomes interdisciplinary contributions at the intersection of land sciences, remote sensing, urban morphology, and environmental modeling, with a strong emphasis on the analysis of land use changes and their implications for sustainable urban development and land management.

This Special Issue will welcome manuscripts addressing, but not limited to, the following topics:

• Changes in land use and land cover in urban areas and their impact on land surface temperature and the intensity of the urban heat island effect (SUHI);
• Multi-temporal analysis of urban land transformation using datasets such as CORINE Land Cover, Urban Atlas, and global land cover products;
• Role of urban morphology, vegetation configuration, and surface materials as soil-related factors determining urban thermal patterns;
• Integration of GIS, remote sensing, and spatial modeling for land-based assessment of urban heat exposure;
• Machine learning and data-driven approaches for analyzing land–climate interactions in urban systems;
• Comparative case studies linking land use trajectories and thermal responses in different cities and regions.

We welcome your original research articles and reviews.

Dr. Antonio Esposito
Dr. Adrianos Retalis
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Land is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• remote sensing
• land use
• surface urban heat island
• urban climate
• urban morphology
• geospatial analysis