A web-based screening tool has been developed to assist urban planners and air quality management officials in assessing the potential of urban heat island mitigation strategies to affect the urban climate, ozone air quality, and energy consumption within their cities. The user of the screening tool can select from any of over 200 US cities for which to conduct the analysis. The mitigation stra...

This paper describes urban wind ventilation mapping, using the concept of “building frontal area index”, and uses the Kowloon peninsula of Hong Kong as an example of a dense, sub-tropical urban environment where ventilation is critical for human health. The frontal area index is calculated for uniform 100 m grid cells, based on three dimensional buildings in each cell, for eight different wind ...

A web-based screening tool has been developed to assist urban planners and air quality management officials in assessing the potential of urban heat island mitigation strategies to affect the urban climate, ozone air quality, and energy consumption within their cities. The user of the screening tool can select from any of over 200 US cities for which to conduct the analysis. The mitigation stra...

One of the most dramatic visuals of the 21st century is the sprawling skyline of a city. Glass-paned buildings as you look up, endless pavement as you look down. Cars honk. Tailpipes leak out pollutants. Lightbulbs buzz as a metropolis works into the night. What you do not necessarily see or hear... but might feel... is the heat. Because of human activities, there is an increase in air temperat...

From the ecological effect of urban green space system, this paper illustrates the necessity and importance of inter-disciplinary evaluation of the urban green space system from the ecological perspective and analyzes the mechanism of action of urban green space in relieving the heat island effect. The quantitative evaluation approach for the thermal environmental impact of urban green space sy...

It has long been known that the urban surface energy balance is different to that of a rural surface, and that heating of the urban surface after sunset gives rise to the Urban Heat Island (UHI). Less well known is how flow and turbulence structure above the urban surface are changed during different phases of the urban boundary layer (UBL). This paper presents new observations above both an ur...

This study presents a method used for predicting the air temperature distribution in an urbanized area from the surface temperature of trees. A strong trend of urbanization can be observed whole over the world (United Nations Centre for Human Settlement, 1996). It is well known and documented that urbanization can have significant effects on local weather and climate (Landsberg, 1981). One of t...

In urban areas, main air flows from prevailing winds are strongly modified, depending on constructions’ morphology and urban microclimate’s effects. The meteorological data on the wind speed are often available from outside city centres whereas this wind speed is tough to assess in the urban canopy layer. The meteorological models which are developed from regional level to urban canopy layer le...

Radiative balance and heat storage capacity modifications play a major role in urban heat island formation. Urban shape determines the receipt and loss of radiation and consequently the heat storage potential, thus resulting in a higher air temperature. In order to analyze the interactions between climate and urban shape, the territory is partitioned from the road network into elementary areas:...