A Study on the Urban Heat Island of the City of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Abstract

The study focuses on the Urban Heat Island (UHI) occurring at metropolitan regions through a case study done on the city of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Malaysia has 14 metropolitan regions with a popu-lation of 75,000 persons. Kuala Lumpur city is the capital city of Ma-laysia with a population of 1504300 persons, recognized as the greatest metropolitan area within the country. The study measures the intensity of the UHI of the city, number and location of cool and heat islands, and location of the nucleus of such UHI. Moreover, it compares the intensity and the location of UHI and the latest previous similar study done in 1985. Two methodologies combined to study the urban heat island of the city; weather station networks method and traverses survey method. The study used the Geographic Information System (GIS) technology to establish the colored contour maps showing the intensity of the urban heat island of the city. The study finds that, the temperature clearly varies from a weekday to weekend. The working days are relatively hot compared to non-working days (weekend). Furthermore, the location of the nucleus of the UHI is shifted from Chow Kit area to Puduraya area. In addition to this, it shows that, there is an increase in the intensity of the UHI of the city of Kuala Lumpur since last similar studies done in 1985 as compared to this study done in December 2004. It finds that, the increase in the intensity of the UHI of the city is 1.5o C, which is a recognized value whenever the human health and comfort are the concern.