The Effect of Pearl River on Summer Urban Thermal Environment of Guangzhou

Guangzhou City, which is located in Hot Summer and Warm Winter Area, has the climate of high temperature and high humidity most of the time, and its urban heat island effect is quite obvious. Urban rivers can improve the urban thermal environment as a natural cooling source, as well as a favorable urban air path. This paper takes advantage of the remote sensing image data by ENVI software, combines the meteorological data from the weather stations distributed in the urban area, and analyses the influence of Pearl River on the surrounding area by some environment parameters, such as temperature, wind velocity and so on. The results show that urban river changes the surrounding airflow. The wind velocity in the area near the river is larger than that in the urban central area with high density of buildings, and the variation of wind direction in these areas is less frequent. The urban heat island intensity nearby the river is lower. The results also show the correlation between the complexity of urban underlying surface and the range influenced by the river. (c) 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.