Heat mitigating natural elements such as trees, shrubs, grass and water have been broadly studied, while their effects on semi-open spaces have been almost ignored. This paper aims at measuring and comparing the heat mitigating effects of four natural elements in Singaporean courtyards. Four typical courtyard scenarios (each featuring a natural element) are simulated in Envi-met and a comprehensive

Land surface temperature (LST) is one of the key parameters in the physics of land surface processes from local through global scales. Although many definitions and classifications have been proposed to better understand the causes and evolution of LST, not enough attention has been paid to their relationship to factors such as socioeconomic characteristics and spatial configuration of cities and the

The study aimed to analyze the long-term trend of four criteria pollutants (PM2.5 and NO2 during 2006–2019; SO2 and CO during 2000–2019) and the effect of pollution control measures in Delhi. The hourly data of PM2.5 and NO2 was taken from six air quality monitoring stations while SO2 and CO data was retrieved from MERRA reanalysis (Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications) products

Urbanization is a major driver of environmental change, which calls for multifunctional and comprehensive actions such as Nature-based Solutions (NbS). They are “inspired and supported by nature… and must benefit biodiversity and support the delivery of a range of ecosystem services”. But what nature should one aim for? We tested the hypothesis that local vegetation may not always be the best source

The relationship of climate change with human migration and mobility has been of interest to researchers and policymakers for >25 years but the past decade has seen a marked growth of attention on climate migration into cities. This paper offers a systematic review of publications across disciplines from 2011 to 2020 on the relationship. An initial 1037 publications on climate change, migration and

Ecosystem service gets more attention among the environmental policy-makers in large-scale industries, especially in the mining industry. The service may direct or indirect benefit to people in various ways. The millennium ecosystem assessment typology is used to appraise the impact on ecosystems, and human well-being, and the ecosystem services are divided into four types as provisioning, regulating

Buildings are an important component of urban form and have complex relationships with land surface temperature (LST). However, the limited availability of high-spatial-resolution data has constrained studies of these relationships at fine scales. In this study, we used airborne LiDAR data, airborne thermal infrared images, and building vector data to quantify the relationships between seven building

Private actors are important for urban climate action, because the public sector can control the carbon footprint of a city only partly. Public-private partnerships have been created through different voluntary approaches, such as city-level voluntary networks for companies with the aim to engage private actors in climate change mitigation and to support learning processes by bringing different actors

In the context of global warming, microclimate improvement is one of several important strategies for alleviating environmental problems such as urban heat islands, and plants are indispensable components of these strategies. The urban microclimate has thus become a pertinent research topic, and simulating the effects of plant transpiration in microclimate models has received increasing attention.

Policymakers have to assess and optimize neighborhood-scale planning aspects to profit from climate mitigation and adaptation measures due to various thermal environmental concerns. There are many models to evaluate the local thermal environment, but their outputs or complexity limit their application in performance-oriented neighborhood planning. In this study, the Urban Weather Generator (UWG) was

The composition, seasonal variation and sources attribution of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) were investigated in a plateau city in China. Air samples were collected simultaneously by canister at three sites and covered four seasons. 113 VOCs species were determined by GC–MS–FID. Higher concentration of α-pinene (0.98 ± 2.25 ppb) in urban central site was observed in this study than in most others

Vehicle emissions are among the primary sources of fine particulate matter (PM2.5). Assessing population exposure levels to PM2.5 from traffic emissions in street canyons is imperative. Accordingly, this study developed an hourly population exposure index (HPEI) by combining PM2.5 concentration distributions determined using computational fluid dynamics–based simulations, outdoor/indoor (O/I) concentration

The German mid-sized city of Remscheid, located in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, can be characterised as an unlikely climate pioneer. Remscheid is a least likely candidate for pioneering climate policies. Previous research suggests that climate pioneers are typically characterised by a growing population, favourable economic conditions, political influence of green parties, a strong civil

The surface ozone, oxides of nitrogen (NOx), and carbon monoxide (CO) were measured from 2015 to 2016 at a mountain site of the Indian western Himalayan region to study the temporal variability of ozone and the influence of precursor gases and meteorological parameters. Ozone showed anti-correlation with NOx and CO, indicating its photochemical origin. Significant variabilities were recorded in the

The excess presence of heavy metals in water resources deteriorates the quality and has a high potential for bioaccumulation and environmental contamination. The study of heavy metals in water is essential because of their integration in the food chain and the potential for sublethal effects on aquatic and human life. To understand the extent of heavy metal pollution, a total of 64 groundwater samples

This study aims to assess the spatial and temporal variations of size-segregated particulate matter (PM) concentration in indoor and outdoor environments located in Vellore city, India. Size-segregated PM was measured using an eight-stage cascade impactor in traffic and residential sites during monsoon, winter, and summer seasons. Results showed that bimodal and trimodal distribution were common in

Regional climate changes have adverse socioeconomic impacts, especially in a megacity. As a case study, we investigate the regional climate changes of Chengdu, the most densely populated cities in western China. In the past 40 years, Chengdu underwent warming and less humid trends over the entire region. Consistently, the number of annual fog days decreased by −20.5 days/10 years on average, and the

Playgrounds are a hub for child play and concerns that may impact children's play there may hinder their health and well-being. Extreme temperatures can increase risks in children of sunstroke, burns from playground surfaces, and exposure to ultraviolet radiation. Despite health risks from extreme heat to children, existing playground design standards around the world, including in Canada, make little-to-no

Vehicle exhaust emissions are major sources of air pollution in urban areas. This study investigates the influence of roadside green belts, spatial urban street layout, and wind speed on the dispersion of vehicle exhaust emissions in street canyons using numerical simulations. Personal daily mean pollutant intake was calculated to assess the extent of exhaust exposure in street canyons. Results showed

The Pearl River Delta urban agglomeration (PRD) is the main body responsible for achieving carbon neutrality in China. However, high carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are significantly affected by internal development disparities, hindering the realization of low carbon. Accordingly, considering the imbalanced development, the PRD is divided into four types: Guangzhou, Shenzhen, active development cities

Climate change and urbanization will further exacerbate tropical cyclones (TCs) causing severer flooding especially in coastal urbanized areas. In this study, the compound effects of climate change and urbanization on organized TC and its flood risk across the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area (GBA) were explored and future projections of 10 models in different Shared Socioeconomic Pathways

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) such as benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene (BTEX) are air pollutants that harm human health. This study aims to identify BTEX concentrations before the lockdown known as the Movement Control Order was imposed (BMCO), during the implementation of the Movement Control Order (MCO), and then during the Conditional Movement Control Order (CMCO). These orders were

The 21st century witnessed unprecedented development in Chinese cities and rapid urbanization has exerted substantial effects on regional environmental and climate change. While increased precipitation and temperature extremes have been widely observed under urbanization, whether increasing urbanization enhances or mitigates drought evolution is still unknown. By applying a series of trend analysis

Urban pluvial flooding (UPF) resulting from localized, intense, rainfall-generated ponding and overland flow causes a range of socio-environmental impacts. UPF is driven by a complex set of interconnected factors, including physical, historical, social, cultural, institutional, and economic conditions. Its impacts are increasing due to both biophysical change (e.g., global warming) and the interactions

The Urban Heat Island (UHI) is a significant phenomenon that currently receives much attention from the scientific community due to its importance on the environment, and it is mostly regarded as a merely negative event. However, there is a clear knowledge gap to investigate its influence when choosing optimal retrofitting interventions in buildings. A replicable methodology is thus needed, also to

The present study presents the climate change impacts on bin weather data and bin method for the city of Senai, Malaysia. Seventeen case simulations were conducted to analyse its impacts on the results of the HVAC energy analysis and determine the suggested lifespan for the bin weather data of Senai. The graph of the mean temperatures has shown a significant increasing trend signalling the occurrence

In this study, we investigated how seasonal and diurnal surface urban heat islands (SUHIs) vary with two- and three-dimensional (2D and 3D) urban structure parameters (USPs) and climate settings. Additionally, whether and how 2D and 3D USPs influenced the seasonal hysteresis between SUHIs and background temperatures were explored using remote sensing for 203 cities over the conterminous US. Results

Taking into account the literature at the intersection of climate change studies and urban studies, the authors examine and compare rainwater management policies in selected Polish cities. There is a special emphasis on urban resilience in order to define their role in ensuring safe living conditions for their residents, including processes of adapting to climate change. The aim is to show how rainwater

Given the increasing frequency, duration, and intensity of heat waves around the globe, more research is needed on the allocation and operations of cooling shelters for efficient heat mitigation. To address this need, this study considers a cooling shelter operating system that uses shuttle buses to transport heat-vulnerable people and presents a binary integer programming model for the multi-depot

Identifying the comprehensive metropolitan urban form is important to propose effective policies to mitigate transportation carbon emissions. A publicly accessible night-time light dataset was used to identify urban centers and develop two polycentric indices to compute the composition and configuration of urban form, respectively. We used the most populous 103 U.S. metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs)

The subsurface beneath urban areas worldwide is warming up, leading to so-called subsurface urban heat islands. Despite many investigations, limited knowledge is available on the sources (e.g., localized drivers) of subsurface urban heat islands. This paper presents an unprecedented Internet of Things facility to unravel key features characterizing localized drivers of subsurface urban heath islands:

Creating climate-proof cities typically comes with institutional barriers between public and private parties. Therefore, local governments are increasingly establishing local climate adaptation networks through which collective knowledge and action can be developed. We aim to understand how these networks can initiate institutional change that enables a climate-proof city. To this end, we theorize

Tokyo is the capital of Japan and the hub of the country's economic and administrative activities. To maintain the momentum of sustained economic growth, Tokyo is transforming the structure of its economic activities, production efficiency, and consumption patterns. Consequently, the supply and demand structure of energy and material in the city has been changing over time with a dramatic increase

As minor fractions of PM2.5, metallic species are particularly associated with health risks. Furthermore, the health risks and health risk-involved source contributions induced by them might be discrepant under different pollution scenarios. To this end, this study first sampled fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in the Harbin city, China from May 2017 to April 2018, then compared the concentrations of

Recent increase in flood disaster is challenging the resilience of societies in many countries of the world. The realisation of these consequences has heightened scholarly inquiry into the method and strategies of flood resilience in cities of global south and north. This study therefore examines determinants of household resilience to floods in Kaduna metropolis, Nigeria. To achieve this, the study

The present study examines the effect of different mitigation strategies on the microclimate and thermal sensation in an urban open area in Athens. The microclimatic model ENVI-met was applied to simulate thermal conditions for a warm summer day (15.07.2010). Thermal conditions were assessed based on air temperature and the Mediterranean thermal sensation scales of the Physiologically Equivalent Temperature

Urban heat Islands (UHIs) may constitute a hazard for urban populations, particularly under extreme events such as heatwaves. Lisbon is a medium-size city regularly affected by heatwaves with maximum temperatures >35 °C and is expected to grow and densify during this century. This study evaluates the UHI in the Municipality of Lisbon (ML) for the heatwave with the highest maximum average temperature

Vulnerability of coastal areas to climate change impacts such as Sea Level Rise (SLR) is largely determined by exposure to coastal hazards and prevailing urban patterns, as different patterns imply varied sensitivity and vulnerability levels. The potential vulnerability of the Nile Delta to SLR impacts is expected to be influenced by projected coastal urban dynamics, which means varied exposure in

The urban heat island effect (UHI) has been widely observed globally, causing climate, health, and energy impacts in cities. The UHI intensities have been found to largely depend on background climate and the properties of the urban fabric. Yet, a complete mechanistic understanding of how UHIs develop at a global scale is still missing. Using an urban ecohydrological and land-surface model (urban Tethys-Chloris)

This study is aimed at modelling land surface temperature (LST) using the spatial lag model (SLM) and spatial error model (SEM). Landsat-8 OLI/TIRS data and digital elevation model were used to generate the dependent and explanatory variables. First, correlation between the variables and LST, and presence of spatial autocorrelation were assessed. Second, the modelled LST was validated. The findings

Impacts of environmental changes at Pune, India during the lockdown period imposed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, on the characteristics of the atmospheric ions and the new particle formation (i.e. the formation of molecular clusters and their subsequent growth to larger sizes) and shrinkage events have been investigated. The increase in the small and big cluster ion concentrations and the decrease

It is important for air pollution study and control to understand the relationships between the concentrations of fine particulate matter and the influencing factors. This study builds a PM2.5 concentration estimation model with high accuracy considering major factors including meteorological conditions, traffic conditions, and urban spatial layouts based on Gradient Boosted Regression Tree approach

This study analysed the variations of relative humidity (RH) over the past 60 years in Shenzhen—an emerging megacity located in the Pearl River Delta region of China. The analysis revealed three stages of mean annual RH in Shenzhen since 1961: (1) a stable period with little change from 1961 to 1980; (2) a fluctuating downward trend from 1981 to 2008, with a linear transformation of −2.5%/decade, explained

Vegetation is important for urban heat mitigation. The cooling intensity of vegetation is affected by background climate and urban design. How to evaluate vegetation cooling efficiency under different climate conditions is still an issue open to discussion. In this study, a normalized indicator of urban vegetation cooling efficiency (NVCE) is proposed as a metric of urban vegetation cooling efficiency

This study aimed to calibrate the physiological equivalent temperature (PET) index range for Cuiabá-MT, a city with a tropical climate, for which PET calibration was not previously conducted. The air temperature, relative humidity, globe temperature, wind speed, and direction were measured in three scenarios: arboreal shading (S1), artificial shading with parasol (S2), and sun exposure (S3). Questionnaires

The impact of climate change on cities poses a growing global threat, which is exacerbated by the urban heat island (UHI) effect. The optimal distribution of vegetation and buildings in urban areas is critical to control the UHI effect and stabilize long-term temperature changes. In this article, we develop an optimization model to maximize revenue while limiting UHI intensity under several restrictions

While previous research on historical changes in heat-related mortality observed decreasing trends over the recent decades, future projections suggest increasing impact of heat on mortality in most regions of the world. This study aimed to analyse temporal changes in temperature-mortality relationships in Prague, Czech Republic in the warm season (May–September), using a daily mortality time series

The study of the urban heat island (UHI) is of great importance in the context of climate change, where increasingly frequent and intense extreme thermal events will generate lethal effects in cities. In this work, we characterize the UHI of the urban area of Zaragoza (Spain) using a thermohygrometric network of hourly observatories composed of 21 sensors, from March 2015 to February 2021. Due to the

Due to their properties and dimensions, courtyards regulate their microclimate, which, above all, mitigates extreme situations and reduces energy consumption. Mainly for increased energy saving, existing courtyards in temperate climates are often subsequently roofed transparently, converting them into atria. Due to various advantages roofs made of ethylene-tetrafluoroethylene (ETFE) foil cushions have

Increased urbanisation is boosting the intensity and frequency of the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect in highly developed cities. The advances in satellite measurement are facilitating the analysis of this phenomenon using Land Surface Temperature (LST) as an indicator of the Surface UHI (SUHI). Due to the spatial implications of using remote sensing data, this research developed ArcUHI, a Geographic

With the rapid increase in global warming, the impact of extreme temperatures on morbidity and mortality related to respiratory diseases has attracted considerable attention. In the current study, we quantified the relative risks (RRs) of mortality for respiratory diseases in three capital cities in Northeast China. We used a distributed lag nonlinear model (DLNM) based on a generalized additive model

The plants follow various strategies for adapting and mitigating climatic and environmental stresses. This offers an opportunity to comprehend adaptation and mitigation mechanisms under changing climate and environment emerging from vehicular emissions. We deployed an approach, i.e., physiological (Phy) and biophysical (Bioph) functional traits (FTs) based approach to understand plant response for

Large urban areas are typically subjected to excessive levels of heat and pollution. The formation of an urban-scale plume would arise from releasing heat in a stable atmosphere. The presence of wind may disrupt the pattern of the plume. This study explores the effect of wind intensity and ambient stability on the plume structure and pollution dispersion numerically. A metropolitan has been selected

Inle Lake is a valuable wetland for local ecosystems and one of Myanmar's freshwater biodiversity hotspot. In this lake, poor management of floating gardens cultivation by some farmers has resulted in leaching of excess nutrients, and then water and sediment were contaminated by chemical residues. This study aims to assess the environmental risk to Lake Ecosystem by investigating the nutrient contamination

Heights of children and adults vary substantially and may cause different exposure to PM2.5 particles. We measured pedestrian PM2.5 exposure by foot following a 5.5 km route along kindergartens and schools in Mainz (Germany). Measurements were conducted in November 2019 on eight consecutive days at two heights, the potential breathing heights of adults in 1.6 and children in 1.0 m using Alphasense