Object-oriented tracking of thematic and spatial behaviors of urban heat islands

Modeling thematic and spatial dynamic behaviors of urban heat islands (UHIs) over time is important for understanding the evolution of this phenomenon to mitigate the warming effect in urban areas. Although previous studies conceptualized that a UHI only has a single life cycle with spatial behaviors, a UHI can be detected to appear and disappear several times periodically in terms of thematic and spatial integrated behaviors. Such multiple behaviors have not yet been illustrated with proof or evidence. This study conceptualizes a UHI as an object which has thematic and spatial behaviors simultaneously and proposes several graphs to depict periodic life-cycle transitions triggered by behaviors. The conceptualized behaviors have been modeled and implemented in an object-relational database management system and temperature readings collected from numerous weather stations were interpolated as temperature images per hour. The results of this study indicate that the model could track the spatial and thematic evolution of UHIs continuously and reveal their periodical patterns and abnormal cases.