4.1.1. Maximum and average urban heat island
The maximum and average SUHI values for all the northeastern Brazilian capitals are represented in (
Figure 5 and
Figure 6), respectively, considering the urban adjacent (Ua), the future urban adjacent (FUa), and the peri-urban (PUa).
An increasing trend in SUHI values in accordance with proximity to the capital was found in the cities of Maceió, Salvador, São Luis, Recife, and Natal. In contrast, a decreasing trend in relation to the capital was found in Fortaleza, João Pessoa, Teresina, and Aracaju.
In addition, to the maximum SUHI values, the same analysis was made with the average SUHI values and is shown in (
Figure 6).
For example, Fortaleza began to present its areas closest to the urban center with higher temperatures, around 27 °C. Even so, Maceió, Salvador, São Luís, and Natal are configured with the expected values, in which the urban area has higher temperatures. In contrast, Recife continued with its lower value in Ua, but the FUa obtained a higher value concerning Ua and PUa, thus being colder in this zone. In contrast, for Teresina, the FUa value was lower, thus characterizing it as a warmer zone, and João Pessoa and Aracaju obtained their warmest zones in their areas farther from the respective urban regions.
Therefore, considering that areas with vegetation and bodies of water mitigate the accumulated heat, while areas with exposed soil and certain construction materials increase the temperature [
35,
36,
37,
38,
39,
40,
41], the hypotheses were raised to explain the results obtained in the Northeastern capitals, with the support of LULC images from MapBiomas [
42],
Figure 7.
Figure 8 shows the capital cities with the respective LST.
Analyzing the Fortaleza maximum SUHI, a high temperature may have occurred in the furthest region of the urban area, at PUa, with a value of 2.31, because the hottest pixel of this area had a very high temperature of approximately 30.96 °C. The region is where Aquiraz is located, a well-traveled and paved metropolitan region (
Figure 4A and
Figure 7A), which may explain the high value found. But in compensation, in the average SUHI, the pixel temperatures in the city's urban area has the highest values, corresponding to 0.13 degree difference, explaining the high temperature near urban areas.
The areas adjacent to Maceió are heavily vegetated and have many bodies of water in the westernmost portion, which may explain the high temperature in urban areas compared to the furthest areas in both the maximum and average SUHI calculation values of 6.79 and 0.82 degree difference, respectively.
Similar to Maceió, Salvador has a water body to the west of the city and many vegetated areas in its suburban areas, besides having a few neighboring towns in the suburban areas. While in the average SUHI, the urban area of Salvador is explicit with temperatures higher than its surroundings, with a value of 2.66 in the maximum SUHI in Ua. However, FUa has very similar values, which can be explained by the presence of a city near Uf, which is responsible for this temperature increase.
In the analysis of the maximum SUHI, Ua is lower among the three reference areas, with a value of 2.48. Therefore, the urban areas present higher temperatures than their surroundings, where the same occurred for the average SUHI, with a value of 0.46. It is worth noting that the areas around the city are vegetated and have water bodies.
With the analysis of the maximum and average SUHI of João Pessoa, it is possible to verify that the PUa temperatures were higher for the other regions and with respect to the urban area, corresponding to 4.28 and -4.92, respectively.
These results may have occurred because PUa is an area with much-exposed soil, besides presenting sites with housing developments, justifying the high temperatures. Regarding the milder temperatures in the city, the region is well-wooded in some locations, more specifically when we look at the central part of the city (
Figure 4E and
Figure 7E), where the Botanical Garden is located, as shown in
Figure 3, this being a 5 km² area with remnant Atlantic Forest vegetation [
43].
In the Recife case, in calculating the maximum and average SUHI, the values obtained among the reference regions were lower for Ua, with 5.21 and -2.03, respectively. However, for the other areas, PUa is still lower than Uf, thus having higher temperature values in PUa concerning it. Ua and PUa can explain this by covering more areas with exposed soil and built-up regions in neighboring cities.
The values of the defined areas in Teresina were very close, all around 7. This magnitude may have occurred because the urban and its surrounding areas present similar characteristics to the area near the urban core, such as the presence of exposed soil in the surroundings, as shown in
Figure 4G. However, the hottest areas were near the PUa. In fact, vegetation occurs near the city and in the closest adjacent areas, still with the presence of a water body, although this is losing its space to the urban constructions.
According to [
24], a similar case of very close values of Ua, FUa, and PUa occurred. As presented in their work, the cities of Athens, Shanghai, Calcutta, and Dammam presented the same conditions as Teresina, having similar surroundings to the urban area.
In Natal, the values of Ua were lower for the two calculations of maximum and average SUHI, 1.85 and 0.06, respectively, in which the city's urban area is hot concerning its surroundings, considering that it has plenty of vegetation in the adjacent regions. However, despite a significant water body in the city, it is surrounded by buildings and constructions, in addition to the few green areas in the city.
Also, in 71 cities analyzed in the [
24] study, 68 showed similar results to Natal, where their maximum and average SUHI, in both cases, were at high temperature values near the urban concerning adjacent areas.
In the case of Aracaju, the PUa presented the lowest values for the two calculations of maximum and average SUHI, with 4.61 and 0.46, respectively, especially when analyzing the average. In addition, the city has some vegetated areas and riverbanks with riparian forests. Its immediate surroundings also have these elements, which can justify the occurrence of lower temperatures concerning PUa.