Conceptual approach to measure the potential of urban heat islands from landuse datasets and landuse projections

Abstract

Urban morphology plays a crucial role in the alteration of the local climate, resulting in the formation of Urban Heat Islands. Regarding the steady growth of cities and the impact of global climate change, the risk of overheating is expected to increase. In order to reduce this risk and the resulting health problems, planning measures are needed to adapt to these severe events. Planners however need tools to quantify and evaluate different adaption strategies to judge its effectiveness. This paper presents conceptual thoughts towards the development of such a planning tool, as well as proposing a method to derive potential areas of intra Urban Heat Islands. A first calibration of the landscape metric for city of Hamburg region is presented, which showcases the method. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.