Climate change and growing megacities: hazards and vulnerability

Abstract

This paper is a review of geophysical and climatic trends associated with extreme weather events and natural hazards, their implications for urban areas and the effects of continued environmental modification due to urban expansion. It discusses how urban design, technological development and societal behaviour can either ameliorate or worsen climate-induced hazards in urban areas. Pressuresranging from excessive rainfall causing urban flooding to urban temperature extremes driving air pollutionrequire more attention to understand, model and predict changes in hazards in urban areas. It concludes that involving different techniques for data analysis and system modelling is more appropriate for practical decision-making than a purely reductionist approach. Successfully determining the future environment of megacities will, however, require joint action with societally informed decision makers, grounded in sound scientific achievements. Trends in climate-related hazardsTrends in climate-related hazards will be discussed in two subsections focusing mainly on their relation to regional climate extremes and urban growth (Figure 1).2.1 Extremes in regional climate and environment New observations and earth system models are showing how the climate has varied in the past in different characteristic ways (IPCC, 2014). Weather patterns are determined not only by 1 Engineering Sustainability Climate change and growing megacities: hazards and vulnerability Hunt, Aktas, Mahalov et al. ice | proceedings Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers Engineering Sustainability http://dx.Engineering Sustainability Climate change and growing megacities: hazards and vulnerability Hunt, Aktas, Mahalov et al. Downloaded by [ University College London] on [15/03/17]. Copyright © ICE Publishing, all rights reserved. Engineering Sustainability Climate change and growing megacities: hazards and vulnerability Hunt, Aktas, Mahalov et al. Downloaded by [ University College London] on [15/03/17]. Copyright © ICE Publishing, all rights reserved. Engineering Sustainability Climate change and growing megacities: hazards and vulnerability Hunt, Aktas, Mahalov et al. Downloaded by [ University College London] on [15/03/17]. Copyright © ICE Publishing, all rights reserved. Engineering Sustainability Climate change and growing megacities: hazards and vulnerability Hunt, Aktas, Mahalov et al. Downloaded by [ University College London] on [15/03/17].

Outdoor Thermal Comfort and Building Energy Use Potential in Different Land-Use Areas in Tropical Cities: Case of Kuala Lumpur

“…An urban heat island (UHI) is often defined as the significant temperature differential between urban and surrounding rural areas [1]. This is primarily attributable to the reduced evapotranspiration due to less greenery, construction materials with higher thermal admittance, lower ventilation due to high surface roughness, and higher anthropogenic heat sources in cities, such as traffic and waste heat from air-conditioning (AC) systems [2]. Quantification of UHI and its implications on heat induced risks on health and wellbeing has gained considerable prominence in academic literature despite the fact that temperature has been shown to be an insufficient metric by a tremendous number of epidemiological studies to appraise heat stress and mortality, which are more meaningfully linked with the combined impact of temperature and humidity [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10].…”

Urban heat island modelling of a tropical city: case of Kuala Lumpur

“…Mega-urban areas in Asia are known to suffer from significant urban heating (Estoque et al 2017;Hunt et al 2018) with important implications on human health and wellbeing (O'Neill and Ebi 2009;Hajat et al 2014), and Greater Kuala Lumpur is not an exception to this with its population expected to exceed 10 million by 2020 (PEMANDU 2014). Kuala Lumpur grew considerably in terms of size and population during the last 50 years with a rate of urbanisation among the highest in Southeast Asia (Yuen and Kong 2009), which has led to significant changes in the land use/land cover of the area and to the disappearance of a clear boundary between the Petaling District and Federal Territory.…”

Recover and They’ll Come: Flower Visiting Bees Benefit from the Continuous of Micro-Environments Set by Regenerating Forest Fragments

“…During the sampling, measurements of the climatic conditions were also performed, for each hour of the day, in both forest fragments. The parameters used were: air temperature (Cº -Digital thermohygrometer) which is a measure of heat trapped in the air, measured here in degrees Celsius; Wind speed (m/s -Digital anemometer) that measures the displacement speed of the air flow in meters (m) per second (s) (Baede et al, 2001;Hunt et al, 2018). Solar intensity (lx -Digital Luxmeter) measures the solar radiation per square meter (lx/m 2 ).…”