Spatiotemporal Analysis of Urban Heat Islands and Vegetation Cover Using Emerging Hotspot Analysis in a Humid Subtropical Climate

Research on the temporal and spatial changes of the urban heat island effect can help us better understand how urbanization, climate change, and the environment are interconnected. This study uses a spatiotemporal analysis method that couples the Emerging Hot Spot Analysis (EHSA) technique with the Mann–Kendall technique. The method is applied to determine the intensity of the heat island effect in humid subtropical climates over time and space. The data used in this research include thermal bands, red band (RED) and near-infrared band (NIR), and Landsat 7 and 8 satellites, which were selected from 2000 to 2022 for the city of Sari, an Iranian city on the Caspian Sea. Pre-processed spectral bands from the ‘Google Earth Engine’ database were used to estimate the land surface temperature. The land surface temperature difference between the urban environment and the outer buffer (1500 m) was modeled and simulated. The results of this paper show the accuracy and novelty of using Emerging Hotspot Analysis to evaluate the effect of vegetation cover on the urban heat island intensity. Based on the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), the city’s land surface temperature increased by approximately 0.30 °C between 2011 and 2022 compared to 2001 to 2010. However, the intensity of the urban heat island decreased during the study period, with r = −0.42, so an average −0.031 °C/decade decrease has been experienced. The methodology can be transferred to other cities to evaluate the role of urban green spaces in reducing heat stress and to estimate the heat budget based on historical observations.