Spatial morphology and urban heat island: comparative case studies

Elmarakby, Esraa; Khalifa, Marwa; Elshater, Abeer; Afifi, Samy

Abstract

Urbanisation is a process associated with the global industrial and technological development. Globally, this process causes a continuous change of the land cover and increases the urban areas. Scholars from various disciplines address these changes that affect the global climatic system, microclimate and the environment. Urban heat island (UHI) is considered as one of the climatic change phenomena which are associated with the urbanisation process. This phenomenon increases the air temperature in the urban areas compared by the surrounding rural ones. This makes up for the problem of overlook the local scale analysis of the UHI and focuses on the mesoscale. This paper aims to explore the relationship between the urban structures in residential areas of Cairo and the UHI. The research methods use remote sensing techniques and field monitoring devices to catch the variances in the air temperature. The key finding figured out the importance of considering the configuration of urban patterns in development plans. Future research in studying the phenomenon is needed for addressing the exact effect of each urban morphology parameters on UHI and analysing the spatial and temporal distribution of the phenomenon throughout various periods of the different the seasons.

• Online Publication Date: Nov 3, 2020
• Publication Date: Nov 3, 2020
• Deposit Date: Dec 2, 2022
• Publisher: Springer
• Pages: 441-454
• Book Title: Architecture and Urbanism: A Smart Outlook
• ISBN: 9783030525842
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52584-2_31
• Publisher URL: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52584-2_31