The comfort, energy and health implications of London's urban heat island

Mavrogianni, A., Davies, M., Batty, M., Belcher, S., Bohnenstengel, S., Carruthers, D., Chalabi, Z., Croxford, B., Demanuele, C., Evans, S., and others. Giridharan, R., Hacker, J., Hamilton, I., Hogg, C., Hunt, J., Kolokotroni, M., Martin, C., Milner, J., Rajapaksha, I., Ridley, I., Steadman, J., Stocker, J., Wilkinson, P., and Ye, Z. (hide) (2011) The comfort, energy and health implications of London's urban heat island. Building Services Engineering Research and Technology, 32 (1). pp. 35-52. ISSN 0143-6244. (doi:10.1177/0143624410394530) (The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided)

Abstract

The urban heat island (UHI) is a well-known effect of urbanisation and is particularly important in world megacities. Overheating in such cities is expected to be exacerbated in the future as a result of further urban growth and climate change. Demonstrating and quantifying the impact of individual design interventions on the UHI is currently difficult using available software tools. The tools developed in the LUCID (‘The Development of a Local Urban Climate Model and its Application to the Intelligent Design of Cities’) research project will enable the related impacts to be better understood, quantified and addressed. This article summarises the relevant literature and reports on the ongoing work of the project. Practical applications: There is a complex relationship between built form, urban processes, local temperature, comfort, energy use and health. The UHI effect is significant and there is a growing recognition of this issue. Developers and planners are seeking advice on design decisions at a variety of scales based on scientifically robust, quantitative methods. The LUCID project has thus developed a series of tools that (1) quantify the effect of urbanisation processes on local environmental conditions, and (2) quantify the impact of such conditions on comfort, energy use and health. The use of such tools is vital, both to inform policy but also to be able to demonstrate compliance with it.

Item Type:	Article
DOI/Identification number:	10.1177/0143624410394530
Subjects:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > G Geography (General) G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GE Environmental Sciences T Technology > TH Building construction
Divisions:	Faculties > Humanities > Architecture
Depositing User:	Giridharan Renganathan
Date Deposited:	05 Nov 2015 16:12 UTC
Last Modified:	29 May 2019 16:14 UTC
Resource URI:	https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/51311 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)
Giridharan, R.:	https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8627-5616