Abstract
The main purpose of this research is to discuss the urban heat island which will be caused by urbanization, especially by the construction of new town on a wide green zone. Over the last ten years, five new towns have been developed around the Seoul metropolitan area. However these new towns become bedroom communities and create traffic problems between Seoul and its surrounding areas because of an increase in population and a lack of roads and other infrastructures. The construction of another such new town is under consideration in the Pan-gyo area. But it is important that Pan-gyo remains a wide green zone. Many studies show that green space can play an important role in improving urban eco-meteorological, ameliorative capability and air hygiene. The objective of this study is to analyze the urban heat islands of Bund-Dang Si which was constructed in 1996 and of the Pan-Gyo area planned as new town. To investigate the local thermal environment and its negative effects caused by change of the land use type and urbanization we used LANDSAT TM images for extraction of urban surface temperature according to change of land use over 15 years. These data were analyzed together with digital land use and topographic data. As a study result, we found that the thermal island of this area from 1985 to 1999 rapidly increased with a difference of mean temperature of more than 12'E. Before construction of Bun-Dang Si the temperature of this area was the same as the forest, but during the new town construction in 1991, an urban heat island developed. The temperature of forest with a size of over 50% of the investigation area was lowest, which leads us to conclude that the forest cools the urban and its surroundings. The mean temperature of the residential and commercial area is more than +4.5$^{\circ}C$ higher then forest, so this method of land use is the main factor increasing the urban heat island. Urban heat islands and green space play an important role in urban wind systems, i.e. Thermal Induced Air Exchange and Structural Wind Circulation, because of their special properties with regard to energy balance between constructed urban and land. The skill to allocate land use types in urban areas is a very important planning device to reduce air pollution and induce the fresh cold air from green space. An urban climatic experiment featuring a numerical wind simulation study to show the air corridor will be published in a following research paper.