Abstract: To understand the impacts of land use/cover change on land surface temperature during the urbanization of new development zones in mountainous cities, we analyzed the spatial distribution of land use type, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and land surface temperature (LST) of Yuelai New City in Chongqing before, during and after urbanization, by interpreting the historical images with remote sensing. Further, the effects of land use type change and NDVI change on LST were analyzed. The residential combined land expanded greatly during urbanization, mainly occupying farmland, followed by forest land. Overall, vegetation grew better after urbanization than before urbanization. The coverage of farmland and forest land increased, while that of residential combined land decreased significantly. LST had obvious heterogeneity in different land use types and regions, and was sensitive to urbanization process, which was more obvious in summer and winter. There was a significant linear correlation between LST and land use area. There was no significant relationship between LST and NDVI, but the shapes of their spatial relationships were triangular in the three periods. Vegetation cover could mitigate the heat island effect. The results could provide theoretical basis for ecological planning and the mitigation of heat island effect during urbanization in new development zones in mountainous cities.

Key words: land surface temperature, land use/cover, vegetation index, urbanization, Yuelai New City