Effects of Land Use and Land Cover Changes on Human Thermal Comfort in Taoyuan, Taiwan

• Main Authors: Szu-Fang Wang, 王思方
• Other Authors: Jehn-Yih Juang
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2018
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/a77396

碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 氣候變遷與永續發展國際學位學程 === 106 === Over the past few decades, Taoyuan, located in northwestern Taiwan, has been experiencing significant land use and land cover (LULC) change. Eight hundred thousand population increased, and the number of the houses doubled in the past two decades. Due to urbanization, the numbers of its unique landscape—the farm ponds—reduced by two-thirds. The impact of LULC changes on regional environments has been widely studied in recent years. However, there is relatively little research focusing on the effects of LULC changes on human thermal comfort. The aim of this study is to investigate the influences of LULC changes on the thermal environment and physiological equivalent temperature (PET), an important human comfort index, in Taoyuan. In this study, Landsat 5 and Landsat 8 satellite data are used to classify the spatial distribution of LULC and land surface temperature (LST) over different periods. The PET is calculated by RayMan model with the weather parameters including the retrieved LST. The results show that 5-6% LULC changes from natural landscapes to artificial objects, while both the range and mean value of LST increase from 1991 to 2016. Specifically, the average LST is highest under the land cover class of the built-up environment, and it increases the most over the study period. Combined with the LST and meteorological data, the PET maps show the distribution of human thermal comfort in a higher spatial resolution in the summer daytime. The distribution of PET also correlated to the LULC. The average PET was high over the study period. In order to improve the thermal comfort, different clothing of the outdoor workers is also considered in this study. It shows that the changes in the clothing could make more than 1 °C difference in PET. By the production of LULC and PET maps, the changes in the environment can be noted easily. Furthermore, the PET map could be taken into considerations for urban planning and adaptation to environmental changes in the future.