Arborização urbana e ilhas de calor no município de São José dos Campos, Estado de São Paulo
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.69609/1415-7411.2026.v32.n1.a4043Abstract
Urbanization is a defining feature of contemporary civilization, having accelerated worldwide since the Industrial Revolution. In Brazil, urbanization was particularly intense between the 1940s and 1980s. The economic dynamism of cities, combined with increased availability of infrastructure and public services, serves as a major population attractor. Consequently, cities continue to exhibit high growth rates, transforming permeable surfaces with extensive vegetation cover into impermeable surfaces with minimal vegetation and a high capacity for heat storage. These transformations alter energy and mass balances as well as local thermal circulation, resulting in the phenomenon known as urban heat islands. The city of São José dos Campos, currently among the 10 most populous in the state of São Paulo, underwent significant urbanization after the 1950s due to the establishment of an industrial and technological hub. For this reason, São José dos Campos is an ideal candidate for the study of heat islands. This study collected simultaneous temperature measurements from four neighborhoods in the city, revealing temperature differences exceeding 3°C. However, variance analysis showed no statistically significant differences between the measurements. Additionally, surface temperature images from the LANDSAT-8 satellite were utilized to corroborate the in situ air temperature measurements. LANDSAT-8 red and near-infrared band images were analyzed to assess the amount of vegetation in the four studied neighborhoods. The analysis indicates that the neighborhood with the lowest measured temperature also had the highest vegetation cover, demonstrating that increasing urban greenery is an effective strategy for mitigating the urban heat island phenomenon.
