The Relationship between spatial arrangement and environmental temperature of residential areas in Xi’an

The urban heat island effect problem in Chinese cities is becoming a serious problem. How to reduce urban environmental temperature through urban design is a particularly important consideration. The air temperature in residential areas is a key indicator for evaluating outdoor thermal comfort. The purpose of this paper is to conduct environmental monitoring in residential areas in Xi’an, China. The relationship between air temperature and spatial arrangement patterns of residential areas was investigated. The study team conducted field monitoring in residential areas in Xi’an during the period from April to May 2019. A geographic information system model was established to analyse the data of 20 measuring locations, such as volume ratio, greening rate, sky visual factors and applied a multivariate linear regression equation to establish the relationship between environmental temperature and residential spatial form factors. The results have shown that a 20% increase in greening rate in urban residential areas in summer could have an impact on the environmental temperature of the area. The day-average temperature (T_avg-day), night-average temperature (T_avg-night) and overall average temperature (T_avg) of residential district’s outdoor environment were reduced by 0.08°C, 0.15°C and 0.13°C, respectively. The study can provide data support for reducing urban heat island effect and would provide a reference for future plan for cooling of residential areas of the same latitude in different parts of the world.