Response Relationship between the Regional Thermal Environment and Urban Forms during Rapid Urbanization (2000–2010–2020): A Case Study of Three Urban Agglomerations in China

Urban agglomerations are currently facing regional thermal environment deterioration. However, the relationship between thermal environment changes in urban agglomerations in response to urban expansion and the underlying urban morphology-driven mechanisms is not clear. This study utilized data from the three largest urban agglomerations in China for 2000, 2010, and 2020 to explore the response of regional heat island changes to urban morphological variations induced by urban expansion through the quantification of urban landscape form, correlation analysis, and relative importance analysis. The results indicate that the distribution of heat source and built-up areas in urban agglomerations has clear spatial and temporal consistency. Moreover, a high regional heat island intensity (RHII) cluster was shown in a “strip-like” form in Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei and the Yangtze River Delta, while the Pearl River Delta, with the most rapid expansion and contiguity of heat source areas, showed a “ring-like” form. RHII was positively correlated with the area of urban clusters and the proportion of built-up areas. However, configuration metrics, such as patch aggregation, also positively affected RHII. Thus, different landscape structures with the same impervious surface area percentage resulted in different RHII values. The relative importance of urban form metrics varied in different urbanization stages; the impervious layer rate was dominant for low and high urban intensity levels, while the shape complexity of urban patches primarily mitigated the thermal environment at the medium urban development level. These results revealed the response relationship between the regional thermal environment and urban morphology, providing insights into how we can improve the regional thermal environment through targeted strategies for optimizing urban form patterns for areas at different urbanization stages.