In this study, a retrospective analysis of the relationship between the land use/land cover (LULC) change and associated surface urban heat island (SUHI) effect in fast-growing Greater Hefei between 1995 and 2016 was performed. Our results reveal the heterogeneous patterns of LULC change. The concentric buffer-based urban–rural gradient analysis reveals that most of the newly emerging developed land occurred within downtown Hefei. In contrast, in three suburban municipality/county jurisdictions, the overall area change in the non-developed land was much lower, but the net increase in developed land is remarkable. Meanwhile, the spatiotemporal patterns of SUHI are in good agreement with that of the developed land, as evidenced by the notable increase in SUHI intensity (SUHII) levels and SUHI spatial extent (SUHISE) in response to the rapid urban expansion, particularly along transportation corridors. In addition, partial least square regression (PLSR) models indicate that the buffer-based predictors/independent variables are significantly related to the responses (SUHII and SUHISE), explaining approximately 61.3% of the variance in the SUHII and 79.8% of the variance in the SUHISE, respectively. Furthermore, the relative strength of the independent variables in determining the relationship was quantitatively examined. The findings of this study provide clear evidence for decision making for sustainable land development and mitigation of the SUHI effect.

Accessibility is an important concept in urban studies and planning, especially on issues related to sustainable transportation planning and urban spatial structure. This paper develops an optimization model to examine the accessibility from single family homes to major urban facilities for services or amenities using geographical information systems. The home-based accessibility to facilities is based upon the point to point direct distance from sampled homes to sampled facilities. Descriptive statistics about the accessibility, such as min/max, mean/median, and standard deviation/variance were computed. Variations of accessibility for a range of categories by home price and year built were also examined. Multivariate linear regression models examining the housing value with respect to home-facility accessibility by facility types were implemented. The results show that desirable urban facilities, which are also more frequently used for livability, enjoy better accessibility than undesirable urban facilities. The home-based accessibility’s positive or negative associations with home price along with year built and/or residential lot size exist for most facilities in general, and by confirming to the literature, the home-facility accessibility in particular does strongly impact home values as evidenced by fair to excellent R² values. Accordingly, this research provides evidence-based recommendations for sustainable urban mobility and urban planning.

Ongoing urban expansion has accelerated the explosive growth of urban populations and has led to a dramatic increase in the impervious surface area within urban areas. This, in turn, has exacerbated the surface heat island effect within cities. However, the importance of the surface heat island effect within urban areas, scilicet the intra-SUHI effect, has attracted less concern. The aim of this study was to quantitatively explore the relationship between the spatial heterogeneity of a built environment and the intra-urban surface heat island (intra-SUHI) effect using the thermally sharpened land surface temperature (LST) and high-resolution land-use classification products. The results show that at the land parcel scale, the parcel-based relative intensity of intra-SUHI should be attributed to the land parcels featured with differential land developmental intensity. Furthermore, the partial least squares regression (PLSR) modeling quantified the relative importance of the spatial heterogeneity indices of the built environment that exhibit a negative contribution to decreasing the parcel-based intra-SUHI effect or a positive contribution to increasing the intra-SUHI effect. Finally, based on the findings of this study, some practical countermeasures towards mitigating the adverse intra-SUHI effect and improving urban climatic adaption are discussed.