Urban Climate Change And Heat Islands

Urban heat islands are a new type of microclimatic phenomenon that causes a significant increase in the temperature of cities compared to surrounding areas. The phenomenon has been enforced by the current trend towards climate change. Although experts consider urban heat islands an urgent European Union public health concern, there are too few policies that address it. The EU carried out a project to learn more about this phenomenon through pilot initiatives. The pilots included feasibility studies and strategies for appropriately altering planning rules and governance to tackle the problem of urban heat islands. The pilots were carried out in eight metropolitan areas: Bologna/Modena, Budapest, Ljubljana, Lodz, Prague, Stuttgart, Venice/Padova, and Vienna. The feasibility studies carried out in these pilot areas focused on the specific morphology of EU urban areas, which are often characterised by the presence of historical old towns.

Urban Climate Change and Heat Islands: Characterization, Impacts, and Mitigation serves as a go to reference for a foundational understanding of urban-climate drivers and impacts. Through the book's comprehensive chapters, the authors help readers identify problems associated with urban climate change, along with potential solutions. Global case studies are included and presented in a way in which they become globally relevant to any urban or intra-urban environment. The authors call on their extensive experience to present and explore methodologies and approaches to quantifying urban-heat mitigation measures in a clear manner, focusing on heat islands, urban overheating and effects on air quality. Includes global case studies that demonstrate how to design and implement urban-heat mitigation measures that are area-specific and effective, under both current climate and future conditions Provides an overview of urban parameterizations in models leading to an improved understating of intra-urban climate variability drivers Assesses potential heat and air-quality health impacts of excessive heat events and changes in local urban climates

Cities are one of the most significant contributors to global climate change. The rapid speed at which urban centers use large amounts of resources adds to the global crisis and can lead to extreme local heat. The Urban Fix addresses how urban design, planning and policies can counter the threats of climate change, urban heat islands and overpopulation, helping cities take full advantage of their inherent advantages and new technologies to catalyze social, cultural and physical solutions to combat the epic, unprecedented challenges humanity faces. The book fills a conspicuous void in the international dialogue on climate change and heat islands by examining both the environmental benefits in developed countries and the population benefit in developing countries. Urban heat islands can be addressed in incremental, manageable steps, such as planting trees and painting roofs white, which provide a more concrete and proactive sense of progress for policymakers and practitioners. This book is invaluable to anyone searching for a better understanding of the impact of resilient cities in the monumental and urgent fight against climate change, and provides the tools to do so.

The Urban Heat Island (UHI) is an area of growing interest for many people studying the urban environment and local/global climate change. The UHI has been scientifically studied for 200 years and, although it is an apparently simple phenomenon, there is considerable confusion around the different types of UHI and their assessment. The Urban Heat Island—A Guidebook provides simple instructions for measuring and analysing the phenomenon, as well as greater context for defining the UHI and the impacts it can have. Readers will be empowered to work within a set of guidelines that enable direct comparison of UHI effects across diverse settings, while informing a wide range of climate mitigation and adaptation programs to modify human behaviour and the built form. This opens the door to true global assessments of local climate change in cities. Urban planning and design strategies can then be evaluated for their effectiveness at mitigating these changes. Covers both on-surface and near-surface, or canopy, measurements and impacts of Urban Heat Islands (UHI) Provides a set of best practices and guidelines for UHI observation and analysis Includes both conceptual overviews and practical instructions for a wide range of uses

The first full synthesis of modern scientific and applied research on urban climates, suitable for students and researchers alike.

Urban heat islands are a new type of microclimatic phenomenon that causes a significant increase in the temperature of cities compared to surrounding areas. The phenomenon has been enforced by the current trend towards climate change. Although experts consider urban heat islands an urgent European Union public health concern, there are too few policies that address it. The EU carried out a project to learn more about this phenomenon through pilot initiatives. The pilots included feasibility studies and strategies for appropriately altering planning rules and governance to tackle the problem of urban heat islands. The pilots were carried out in eight metropolitan areas: Bologna/Modena, Budapest, Ljubljana, Lodz, Prague, Stuttgart, Venice/Padova, and Vienna. The feasibility studies carried out in these pilot areas focused on the specific morphology of EU urban areas, which are often characterised by the presence of historical old towns. This work was published by Saint Philip Street Press pursuant to a Creative Commons license permitting commercial use. All rights not granted by the work's license are retained by the author or authors.

The combination of global warming and urban sprawl is the origin of the most hazardous climate change effect detected at urban level: Urban Heat Island, representing the urban overheating respect to the countryside surrounding the city. This book includes 18 papers representing the state of the art of detection, assessment mitigation and adaption to urban overheating. Advanced methods, strategies and technologies are here analyzed including relevant issues as: the role of urban materials and fabrics on urban climate and their potential mitigation, the impact of greenery and vegetation to reduce urban temperatures and improve the thermal comfort, the role the urban geometry in the air temperature rise, the use of satellite and ground data to assess and quantify the urban overheating and develop mitigation solutions, calculation methods and application to predict and assess mitigation scenarios. The outcomes of the book are thus relevant for a wide multidisciplinary audience, including: environmental scientists and engineers, architect and urban planners, policy makers and students.

The book reviews and reports the recent progress and knowledge on the specific impact of current and projected urban overheating as well as of the urban mitigation technologies on mortality and morbidity and urban vulnerability. It presents recent data and developments on the topic reported by some of the more distinguished researchers in this area. In parallel, it discusses new findings related to the characteristics and the magnitude of urban overheating and reports and analyzes the recent knowledge on the synergies between urban heat island and heatwaves. This book helps to advance our understanding on the interaction between Urban Heat Island (UHI) and overheating as well as their impact on energy demand and public health globally. Exploring the interaction between UHI and energy consumption requires the understanding on the dynamics of UHI intensity and air pollution index in different land use and how such interactions may vary in different cities in the world. Moreover, this book focuses on different cities in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Cyprus, Greece, Hong Kong, India, Asia, Spain, UK, and USA.