Review and Critical Analysis of International UHI Studies

Urban design and planning is a complex but critical area for expanding cities, adapting cities and
newly evolving cities. The studies presented are limited and only briefly touch upon the critical
issues and therefore further research is required to help both the policy makers, planners and
designers appreciate the value of adopting a systems perspective of urban city and building
design rather than a more isolated view of the design architecture.
4.8 Review for Environmental Assessment:
4.8.1 Environmental Assessment Principles
In summary, industrialization and urbanization results in a loss of natural green space, an
expansion of built surfaces both above and below ground and mass concentrations of population
all help to form UHIs and their well documented phenomena. UHIs have undesirable and costly
side effects for the environment; these are highlighted in chapter 1.2. The UHI side‐effects often
have unwanted environmental consequences upon the urban space in terms of air pollution,
destruction of habitats/ecosystems, water pollution, etc.
This section reports the findings from UHI mitigation studies that address the above issues. This
section seeks to highlight the key environmental issues which can be mitigated thus having an
impact from the local to global scale. The aim is to report findings as the literature addresses
them and report any activities/solutions/outcomes that have evolved within the environmental
mitigation domain.
4.8.2 Environmental Assessment Summary of Literature and Findings
Despite not being a focal point of this study, it was noted that the majority of the studies that
reviewed the environmental impacts were predominantly US centric with some emphasis in
Japan, China and parts of Europe. They addressed the environmental impacts to varying degrees
using modeling, simulation and experimental field work, but were predominantly focused on
evaluating the UHI environmental implications in terms of understanding their impact on air
quality rather than how mitigation programs alleviate impacts on the environment.
4.8.3 Environmental Assessment Literature Review
Most papers to some degree reference the potential of UHI countermeasures in addressing the
environmental impacts. Although important, these studies are not the focus of this particular
task, thus below is a list of the range of studies that examine this through modeling, simulation or
experimental field work and to a greater extent have been covered through the individual
technology and modeling/simulation sections of the report.
The list of studies that aim to provide an environmental assessment include a total of twenty‐
seven papers. Of these papers about 80% are US centric and the remaining 20% are studies in
parts of Japan, China and Europe.
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