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Attenuating Urban Heat Problems: Pathways towards Climate-Resilient Cities

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Urban and Rural Development".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2022) | Viewed by 5314

Special Issue Editors

School of Urban Design, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China
Interests: urban climate change; climate resilience; digital city planning; remote sensing
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Guest Editor
Department of Geography and Resource Management, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
Interests: spatio-temporal data analytics; unified satellite image fusion; spatial statistics for land use/land cover change modeling; multi-objective optimization for sustainable land use planning
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Guest Editor
School of Urban Design, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China
Interests: smart urban planning; digital city; resilience city; urban climate; remote sensing
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Guest Editor
Department of Building and Real Estate, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong SAR, China
Interests: outdoor thermal comfort; urban greenery; urban waterbody; climate-sensitive design
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The extensively observed urban heat island (UHI) effect, a phenomenon in which temperature in urban areas is higher than that in surrounding rural areas, has exposed urban dwellers to added heat stress. Its impact on human health is further exacerbated given its synergies with other aspects of climate change, such as the increasingly frequent heatwave events. Besides their health impacts, urban heat problems combined with the effects of UHIs and heatwaves can also increase energy consumption, harm air and water quality, and also threaten urban ecosystems.

This Special Issue aims to 1) provide a platform for a comprehensive discussion of the crucial aspects relevant to urban heat, including causes and solutions to urban heat problems, and 2) foster evidence-based pathways to urban resilience for a changing urban climate.

The following types of papers are requested: original research papers, reviews, short communications, and perspective essays. This Special Issue aims to cover topics including, but are not limited to:

(1) Climate-resilient urban planning and design;

(2) Spatio-temporal evolution of urban heat problems;

(3) Synergies between heat waves and urban heat islands;

(4) Urbanization-related determinants of urban heat islands;

(5) Numerical simulation models to support climate-sensitive planning and design;

(6) Applications of remote sensing and GIS techniques in analyzing urban heat problems;

(7) Advances in mitigation and adaptation strategies and techniques, e.g., nature-based solutions;

(8) Thermal comfort and public health.

Dr. Huimin Liu
Prof. Dr. Bo Huang
Prof. Dr. Qingming Zhan
Dr. Wanlu Ouyang
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • urban heat island
  • heat wave
  • mitigation and adaptation strategies
  • climate resilience
  • sustainable urban planning
  • urban governance

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

23 pages, 8816 KiB  
Article
Analysis and Optimization of Thermal Environment in Old Urban Areas from the Perspective of “Function–Form” Differentiation
by Suiping Zeng, Jiahao Zhang and Jian Tian
Sustainability 2023, 15(7), 6172; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15076172 - 3 Apr 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1974
Abstract
High-density urban areas have spatial characteristics, such as complex functions, population gathering, and complex forms, that lead to more severe urban heat island effects. Systematically evaluating the thermal environmental benefits of urban spatial forms to optimize the urban physical environment is important. In [...] Read more.
High-density urban areas have spatial characteristics, such as complex functions, population gathering, and complex forms, that lead to more severe urban heat island effects. Systematically evaluating the thermal environmental benefits of urban spatial forms to optimize the urban physical environment is important. In this study, Tianjin’s central urban area, which is a typical representative of high-density urban areas, was selected to invert the multi-period land surface temperature by relying on the existing two- and three-dimensional morphological data set of communities. The multi-scale geographically weighted regression model was used to fit the regression relationship between the urban land surface temperature and spatial morphological parameters. From this, the influencing factors of different types of existing community spaces and their spatial stabilities were explored. The results show the following: (1) The summer surface temperature varies greatly in the central urban area, and the high-temperature areas are mainly distributed in the industrial, residential, and commercial districts. (2) The MGWR model has the better model-fitting ability. The positive influence coefficients of temperature include ISP and BD, while the negative influence coefficients are BSD, BH, NDVI, and SVF. (3) There is significant spatial heterogeneity in the impact coefficients among the blocks that can be targeted to mitigate the heat island effect. This study provides ideas for optimizing the spatial morphological parameters of surface temperature in urban centers. Future challenges include increasing the spatial morphological parameter selection range, dissecting the interactive relationships between spatial morphological parameters and their effectiveness on the surface temperature, and refining the study’s spatial and temporal granularity. Full article
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16 pages, 3203 KiB  
Article
The Cooling Effect of an Urban River and Its Interaction with the Littoral Built Environment in Mitigating Heat Stress: A Mobile Measurement Study
by Yasha Wang, Wanlu Ouyang, Qingming Zhan and Li Zhang
Sustainability 2022, 14(18), 11700; https://doi.org/10.3390/su141811700 - 18 Sep 2022
Cited by 16 | Viewed by 2403
Abstract
Rivers within urban areas could influence the thermal environment by modifying air temperature (AT) and relative humidity (RH). To further explore the cooling effect of a large river on surrounding urban areas, we conducted mobile measurements near the Yangtze River in Wuhan during [...] Read more.
Rivers within urban areas could influence the thermal environment by modifying air temperature (AT) and relative humidity (RH). To further explore the cooling effect of a large river on surrounding urban areas, we conducted mobile measurements near the Yangtze River in Wuhan during a hot and humid summer day. This research examined the river cooling effect, determined the thresholds of the cooling and humidifying distance using a third-order polynomial method, assessed littoral heat stress at the pedestrian level and investigated the impact of the littoral built environment using stepwise regression analysis. The results revealed that (1) the cooling and humidifying effect of the river was up to 3.55 °C, 1741 m and 17.25%, 1369 m in the daytime, which was much greater than that at night; (2) the river significantly mitigated pedestrian heat stress within 1200 m from the riverbank in the daytime, but showed a weak negative effect at night; (3) the built environment has a significant impact on the littoral areas, e.g., urban greening during the daytime and building morphology at night. The findings of this study provide empirical evidence for the cooling effect of a large river in urban areas and further support climate-sensitive planning and design for our thermal environment. Full article
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