Monitoring Urban Thermal Environments and Landscapes Through Remote Sensing
A special issue of Remote Sensing (ISSN 2072-4292). This special issue belongs to the section "Urban Remote Sensing".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 November 2025 | Viewed by 910
Special Issue Editors
2. Faculty of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan
Interests: sustainable development; land-use policy; spatial analysis; environment protection; remote sensing; land-use modelling
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: urban studies; urban sustainability; urban heat island; landscape patterns; sustainable development; urban volume
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: human geography; GIScience; geospatial analysis; spatial modeling; urban geography
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Urbanization has significantly transformed urban landscapes. The shift from natural environments to human-made structures has had a profound impact on the urban thermal environment, resulting in the well-known urban heat island (UHI) phenomenon. The effects of UHI have been amplified by global warming, particularly during summer seasons, leading to adverse consequences for energy consumption and human health. Given this situation, it is essential to monitor, predict and model the urban thermal environment to support sustainable urban development. Various practices have been employed, such as rearranging landscape patterns, developing new construction materials, and implementing green roofs, to mitigate the increasing UHI phenomenon. Nevertheless, these practical experiences have not been systematically discussed, and regional differences have brought about uncertainties in their direct application. Therefore, there is a demand for new techniques and perspectives in urban planning to alleviate UHI and create livable cities, particularly in rapidly growing urban areas.
This Special Issue concentrates on newly released remote sensing data, techniques, and practical solutions for monitoring and improving the urban thermal environment. Case studies of long-time and large-scale monitoring, three-dimensional analysis, and policy-related discussion are also welcome. Authors are encouraged to show new techniques for depicting the spatial patterns of temperature or new findings for revealing the mechanism of UHI formation. Articles may address, but are not limited to, the following topics:
- Landscape composition and configuration;
- Multi-city studies on urban thermal environment;
- Surface urban heat island intensity;
- Sustainable urban development;
- Three-dimensional landscape analysis;
- Cooling efficiency and scale of urban landscape;
- New two-dimensional and three-dimensional landscape indicators;
- Strategies for allocating green and blue resources in urban area.
Dr. Ruci Wang
Dr. Hao Hou
Prof. Dr. Yuji Murayama
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 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
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. Remote Sensing is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly 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 2700 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.
Keywords
- land surface temperature
- urban climate
- scenario simulation
- sustainable development
- machine learning
- cooling effect and scale
- future prediction
- landscape modeling
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