Chrysoulakis N, Grimmond CSB 2016: Understanding and Reducing the Anthropogenic Heat Emission in Urban climate mitigation

INTRODUCTION Cities and the behaviour of their residents change through time. The spatial organization of urban areas, whether the footprint and height of buildings; the width, length, and layout of streets; where people live and where they work; the walkability and scale of neighbourhoods; the relative proximity of urban amenities; the type and diversity of urban green space all affect urban energy use. The global urban population is expected to increase up to 7 billion by 2050 (United Nations, 2010). Thus there are enormous opportunities to shape the built environment and for urban planning to play an important role in climate change mitigation (implementation of mitigation technologies, such as green roofs and cool materials) and adaptation (adaptation measures, such as emergency management plans) at the city level (Santamouris 2014). Mitigating climate change can be achieved better by regulating land-use change than CO2 emissions reductions alone (Stone 2009). The regionalized impacts of the anthropogenic heat emissions on climate have the effect of more directly localizing the benefits of land-based mitigation (Stone et al. 2012).