Long-term analysis of the relationship between urban heat island and economic development over 34 major cities in China

Exploring the relationship between surface urban heat island (SUHI) effect and urban economic development is a problem that people pay attention to for a long time. In this paper, we use MODIS surface temperature data to calculate the SUHI intensity of 34 major cities in mainland China from 2003 to 2017. Then we first analyze the relationship between annual average SUHI intensity and urban annual gross domestic product (GDP). A good linear relationship is found in most cities in north and northeast China with the coefficient of determination (R²) reaching 0.63 at most. In addition, the relationship between SUHI intensity and GDP during the day is significantly better than that at night. These conclusions can provide a new insight for people to understand the impact of urban heat island effect on urban economic development in the future. (paper)