Understanding the impact of urban expansion and lake shrinkage on summer climate and human thermal comfort in a land-water mosaic area

Wuhan has witnessed unprecedented urban expansion that encroached upon sizable inland lakes. However, the impacts of urban expansion on climate and heat stress for such a city with complex physiographic background (land-water mosaics) remain understudied. Using a coupled urban-lake-atmospheric model, we first examined summer climate responses to urban expansion and lake shrinkage in Wuhan during 2000-2020. Second, multiple heat stress indicators were used to evaluate human thermal comfort in different contexts of interest. Results showed that the presence of water bodies reduced daytime maximum temperature, raised nighttime minimum temperature, and increased moisture content in urban and built-up areas. Urban expansion alone led to summer warming of 0.9 degrees C and drying of 0.9 g/kg, with local peak warming and drying up to 2 degrees C and 1.4 g/kg. In comparison, urban expansion with lake shrinkage showed a reduced magnitude of warming of 0.8 degrees C and increased magnitude of drying of 1.6 g/kg, with the maximum changes up to 1.4 degrees C and 2.0 g/kg. The presence of water bodies reduced while urban expansion increased the frequency of occurrence of yellow and orange heat alert days; however, both increased the number of days exerting high thermal risks on outdoor workers and those days that were dangerous for outdoor pedestrians. Our study underlined that both urban expansion and water body existence exerted a strong influence on summer climate and heat stress in Wuhan, and highlighted that mitigation measures should be taken to alleviate the deleterious impacts of high temperature and humidity on human health.

To Access Resource:

Questions? Email Resource Support Contact:

  • opensky@ucar.edu
    UCAR/NCAR - Library

Resource Type publication
Temporal Range Begin N/A
Temporal Range End N/A
Temporal Resolution N/A
Bounding Box North Lat N/A
Bounding Box South Lat N/A
Bounding Box West Long N/A
Bounding Box East Long N/A
Spatial Representation N/A
Spatial Resolution N/A
Related Links

Related Dataset #1 : MOD11A1 MODIS/Terra Land Surface Temperature/Emissivity Daily L3 Global 1km SIN Grid V006

Related Dataset #2 : MYD11A1 MODIS/Aqua Land Surface Temperature/Emissivity Daily L3 Global 1km SIN Grid V006

Related Dataset #3 : The gridded 2-m air temperature data produced by Yao et al. (2021),the depth of major lakes in Wuhan, and and the land use/land cover data in 2000, 2010, and 2020

Additional Information N/A
Resource Format PDF
Standardized Resource Format PDF
Asset Size N/A
Legal Constraints

Copyright 2022 American Geophysical Union


Access Constraints None
Software Implementation Language N/A

Resource Support Name N/A
Resource Support Email opensky@ucar.edu
Resource Support Organization UCAR/NCAR - Library
Distributor N/A
Metadata Contact Name N/A
Metadata Contact Email opensky@ucar.edu
Metadata Contact Organization UCAR/NCAR - Library

Author Deng, X.
Cao, Q.
Wang, L.
Wang, Wei
Wang, S.
Wang, L.
Publisher UCAR/NCAR - Library
Publication Date 2022-06-16T00:00:00
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) Not Assigned
Alternate Identifier N/A
Resource Version N/A
Topic Category geoscientificInformation
Progress N/A
Metadata Date 2025-07-11T16:02:22.367860
Metadata Record Identifier edu.ucar.opensky::articles:25479
Metadata Language eng; USA
Suggested Citation Deng, X., Cao, Q., Wang, L., Wang, Wei, Wang, S., Wang, L.. (2022). Understanding the impact of urban expansion and lake shrinkage on summer climate and human thermal comfort in a land-water mosaic area. UCAR/NCAR - Library. https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7d50rn6. Accessed 31 July 2025.

Harvest Source