Research on the relationship between Urban Heat Island and LUCC in Xuzhou city by remote sensing

China has entered a rapid urbanization period, coming with several environmental problems, for example the Urban Heat Island (UHI). There are many factors that impact the spatial distribution of the UHI, such as water, vegetation, pavement, buildings etc. All in all, the land use and cover change (LUCC) controls the distribution of the UHI. In order to find the impacts of LUCC on the UHI, Xuzhou city located in Jiangsu province was taken as the study area. Two Landsat images in 2000 and 2007 were processed to obtain the information of the LUCC and surface temperature of Xuzhou City. Furthermore, it is found that the urban area was enlarged and the land use of Xuzhou city has changed greatly in the last seven years, coming with more obvious UHI. In details, the UHI area was enlarged and the temperature difference was also getting larger. The surface temperature at construction area or bare ground is the highest. The temperature at the area of water and vegetation is the lowest. It indicts that water and vegetation can bring down the surface temperature and alleviate the UHI effects. Especially, the alleviation can be found within 200 m–300 m away from the water body. Therefore, some recommendations were proposed for land use planning to relieve the UHI for Xuzhou city. And further study on the impacts of the UHI on the safety of the residents and urban construction are needed. Because the temperature changes in the urban area will also change the characters of substance.