Characterizing Two Types of Urban Air and Surface Heat Island according to Urban Design -Case of Casablanca Neighborhoods-

Abstract

The urban heat island (UHI) is a recognized signature of the urban climate, however beyond this characterization; it is
still a relevant phenomenon to study in urban design. In this paper, we seek to characterize UHI in differing urban
forms, comparing air and surface temperatures to characterize Air UHI (AUHI) and Surface UHI (SUHI) respectively.
The analysis site corresponds to the districts of Casablanca, Morocco's largest city, covering coastal and central
neighborhoods with different urban planning styles. We used land surface temperatures (LST) from the Landsat-8
satellite and both observed and simulated air temperatures from the Copernicus reanalysis. We argue that LST is
always higher than air temperature and that there is a shift between SUHI and AUHI that we have quantified for
daytime and nighttime monitoring. We also concluded that UHI depends on four criteria: location, land use, building
height, and road width.