Regulatory Effects of Urban Morphology on Near-Surface Wind Speed in China Revealed by Observed and Remote Sensing Data

The decline in surface wind speed caused by rapid urbanization has been confirmed in many regions. However, due to technological limitations, previous studies have often overlooked the multidimensional aspects of urban morphology and the coupled effects among these morphological factors, especially at large scales. Recent advances in remote sensing, particularly the availability of long-term 3D urban morphology datasets derived from global settlement products, have enabled such analyses. In this study, we collected and integrated surface wind speed data from 183 stations across China for 1975–2020 with satellite-derived 2D–3D urban morphological indicators to quantitatively assess the impacts of urban morphology on wind speed variation. We found that during the entire study period, the mean surface wind speed at urban stations (2.38 ± 0.13 m s⁻¹) was significantly lower than that at rural stations (2.86 ± 0.28 m s⁻¹); meanwhile, the declining trend at urban stations (–0.11 m s⁻¹ decade⁻¹, p < 0.05) was faster than that at rural stations (–0.07 m s⁻¹ decade⁻¹, p < 0.05). In addition, we observed that the wind reversal phenomenon (i.e., a transition from widespread decline to widespread increase over recent decades) occurred earlier at rural stations (2008) than at urban stations (2011). Moreover, the linear mixed-effects regression model, with urban–rural station pairing treated as a random effect to account for location-specific variability, indicated that building surface density, near-surface air temperature, and building-topographic height difference jointly dominated the variation of surface wind speed at urban stations, and the coupled effects of multiple urban morphological factors exceeded those of any single factor. This study provides evidence for mitigating the adverse impacts of extreme heat on populations through urban morphological modifications.