The transition from the industrial age and the growing impact of the global economy on human life which has led to rapid expansion of western urban design culture in countries like Iran, are among the reasons why nowadays there is only a memory left in our minds of our traditional cities. "Urban identity" is one of the most important and most controversial issues among urban designers and other...

This research examines the relationship between surface kinetic temperature (SKT), land cover, and the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) for a small city in the Midwestern United States. Color aerial photography was examined to create high resolution maps of land cover for 377 random quadrats. Average NDVI for each quadrat was determined from hyperspectral aerial imagery, whereas th...

The urban heat island effect is linked to the built environment and threatens human health during extreme heat events. In this study, we analyzed whether characteristic land uses within an urban area are associated with higher or lower surface temperatures, and whether concentrations of ―hot‖ land uses exacerbate this relationship. Zonal statistics on a thermal remote sensing image for the City...

Ten cities with different population and urban sizes located in the Pearl River Delta, Guangdong Province, P.R. China were selected to study the relationships between the spatial extent of surface urban heat islands (SUHI) and five urban characteristic factors such as urban size, development area, water proportion, mean NDVI (Normalized Vegetation Index) and population density, etc. The spatial...

High temperature in the city centers than its’ surroundings known as the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect, which is causing discomfort to the urban dwellers in the summer time is gaining much attention around the world because the world is getting urbanized as it advances in technology. Alterations of surface area, improper urban planning, air pollution, etc. are causing this increasingly growing...

The higher concentration of man-made objects like asphalt pavement and concrete structures within urban areas lead to the formation of subareas known as urban heat islands (UHI), where the ambient temperature is significantly higher. Having a good understanding of this problem is critical for better urban development. Thermal infrared (TIR, 8-12 μm) remote sensing is often used to localize UHI....

This paper attempts to evaluate the positive effects of vegetation with a multi-scale approach: an urban and a building scale. Monitoring the urban heat island in four areas of New York City, we have found an average of 2 °C difference of temperatures between the most and the least vegetated areas, ascribable to the substitution of vegetation with man-made building materials. At micro-scale, we...

Soil temperature (tB) was determined down to 2 m below ground level at 8 locations in the city of Oberhausen, Ruhr area, Germany, between August 2010 and July 2011 to investigate the subsurface urban heat island (SUHI) and its impact on drinking water quality. The soil temperatures obtained in Oberhausen demonstrate typical location-dependent behaviour. At the depth of drinking water pipes (1 t...

It is well known that local urban heat island (UHI) effects impact the urban environment from a public health standpoint and with regards to heating and cooling energy used by buildings. Unfortunately, neither urban planners and designers nor energy consultants currently have quantitative tools or methods at their disposal to incorporate this effect into the design of a neighborhood. This manus...

Long-term urban and rural climate data spanning January 1995 through October 2013 were analyzed to investigate the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect in a representative mid-sized city of the central US. Locally distributed climate data were also collected at nested low density urban, recently developed, and high density urban monitoring sites from June through September 2013 to improve mechanistic...