The climate adaptive characteristics of urban inside/outside water bodies based on their cooling effect in Poyang and Dongting lake regions, China

Most publications have focused on the cooling effect of urban inside water bodies. However, the climate adaptive characteristics of urban inside/outside water bodies is seldom studied. In this paper, three types of water bodies, i.e., urban inside water bodies, urban outside discrete water bodies and large water bodies are identified according to their relative spatial relationships with built-up areas. The climate adaptive landscape characteristics of water bodies are analyzed based on water bodies’ cooling effect (WCE) inside and outside cities in the Poyang Lake and Dongting Lake regions. Seventy-three Landsat TM/OLI/TIRS images acquired from 1989 to 2019 are employed. Landscape scale characteristics of urban inside/outside water bodies are described by area, water depth, perimeter to area ratio (PARA) and distance-weighted area index (DWAI). Three temperature-related parameters are calculated to estimate the WCE in different conditions. Climate adaptive characteristics of water bodies inside/outside cities are determined by correlation and regression analysis. Results show that: 1) The long river shape, depth, orientation and fluidity of urban inside water bodies are benefit to enhance their cooling effect; 2) the distance of urban outside water bodies from built-up areas are positive correlated with their cooling effect; 3) the optimal acreage of large water bodies are >2500 km(2) and 1111–1287.5 km(2) for climate adaption of Poyang Lake and Dongting Lake, respectively. Simultaneously, the WCE of urban outside large water bodies is related with human activities and climate conditions. The results of our study provide a significant contribution to blue-space planning in cities, and provide insights into actionable climate adaption planning in inland large lake areas.