Separate and combined effects of 3D building features and urban green space on land surface temperature

Deduction of urban green space (UGS) and the multidimensional growth of building have exacerbated the urban heat island (UHI). Yet thorough investigations into how 3D building features and UGS combinedly influence urban land surface temperature (LST) are limited, especially at the road-based blocks scale. Therefore, the study uses the boosted regression tree (BRT) model to explore the relative contribution and marginal effects of the influential factors on LST, and quantify the warming/cooling effects of buildings and UGS. Results show that, (1) building coverage ratio (BCR) is the most influential factor among seven building metrics with a relative contribution of 44.6%. Besides, high-rise buildings tend to alleviate LST while low- and mid-rise buildings heat the surroundings. (2) Green coverage ratio (GCR), edge density (ED), and patch density (PD) are the most influential factors among six UGS metrics, with the relative contribution of 21.0%, 20.9%, and 20.4%, respectively. (3) Comprehensively considering 13 metrics, we find that the dominant influential factor is BCR with a relative contribution of 28.3%, while the regulation amplitudes to LST of aggregation index (AI) and GCR dramatically reduced. These findings indicate that the cooling effect of UGS will be obscured when the buildings coverage is large. Hence, only relying on UGS to alleviate the heat island effect seems inadequate, the keys are the reasonable planning and optimization of 3D built environment. •Separate and combined effects of 3D building features and UGS on LST were explored.•High-rise buildings tend to alleviate LST while low- and mid-rise buildings heat the surroundings.•UGS can provide effective cooling effects when ignoring the buildings.•Optimizing the composition and configuration of the built environment should be considered to alleviate UHI.