Satellite Remote Sensing of Urban Thermal Environment: Progresses, Challenges, and Opportunities

Dear Colleagues,

In the past several decades, the world has experienced fast urbanization, and this trend is expected to continue for decades to come. Urbanization plays an important role in the Earth system through modifying the terrestrial surfaces and atmospheric composition. Especially, urbanization changes the thermal environment in urban areas by creating the phenomenon of urban heat islands (UHI), with higher temperatures in urban areas compared to their surrounding rural areas. UHI has a significant socioeconomic and environmental impact, such as increasing cooling energy use, altering vegetation phenology, and affecting the health of urban dwellers, from local, to regional, and even global scales. As a result, UHI will pose challenges for environmental sustainability with its significant adverse impacts on human activities and natural processes. There is a growing need, from both the science and policy making communities, for science-based information and knowledge on the urban thermal environment and its drivers and impact from local to global scales. An improved understanding of the urban thermal environment can help us develop better practices in land use planning and management for urban sustainability.

Satellite remote sensing plays an irreplaceable role in understanding our urban thermal environment. With the rapid development of remote sensing technologies and algorithms, this Special Issue invites original manuscripts on the latest research and advancement in the remote sensing of the urban thermal environment. Potential topics include but are not limited to the following:

• New methods for quantifying surface and air UHI;
• Improvements in land surface and air temperate data for UHI studies;
• Relationship between surface and air UHI;
• Innovative findings on spatial and temporal patterns of UHI;
• UHI studies in understudied regions or cities;
• Evaluations of UHI drivers (e.g., urban composition and configuration);
• Cooling effects of green and blue spaces;
• Predicting and modelling UHI;
• The investigation of UHI impacts on human activities (e.g., building energy use and heat related illness);
• The investigation of UHI impacts on natural processes (e.g., vegetation phenology);
• Mitigation and adaptation measures of UHI.

Dr. Yuyu Zhou
Dr. Weiqi Zhou
Dr. Bailang Yu
Dr. Wenfeng Zhan
Dr. Decheng Zhou
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. 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.