Impact of urbanization level on the interactions of urban area,the urban climate,and human thermal comfort |
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Affiliation: | 1. School of Geographical Sciences, Guangzhou University, Guangzhou 510006, China;2. Guangdong Province Engineering Technology Research Center for Geographical Conditions Monitoring and Comprehensive Analysis, Guangzhou 510006, China;3. Center of Geo-Informatics for Public Security, School of Geographic Sciences, Guangzhou University, Guangzhou 510006, Guangdong, China;4. Department of Geography, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH 45221-0131, USA;1. Division of Environment, Faculty of Engineering, University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus, 43500 Semenyih, Selangor, Malaysia;2. School of Environmental and Geographical Sciences, University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus, 43500 Semenyih, Selangor, Malaysia;3. Faculty of Architecture Planning and Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Selangor, Malaysia |
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Abstract: | One significant effect of urbanization is the modification of natural surfaces, local environment, and thermal comfort. Farmland and agricultural land in Klang Valley conurbation, Malaysia have been replaced with engineered surfaces and infrastructures to accommodate the rapid population growth witnessed in the past decades. To understand the current environmental conditions of the conurbation, numerical Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model coupled to the Urban Canopy Model (UCM) was used. A model evaluation conducted against a network of observations showed an overall good performance of the model in predicting near-surface meteorological parameters. Also, an examination of spatiotemporal variability of urban parameters revealed a diurnal dependence of human physiological thermal conditions on urbanization level. A maximum urban heat island intensity (UHII) of ∼2.64 °C was observed. In an effort to investigate the effect of urbanization level on the extremities of urban climatic conditions, two different experiments with varying urban/vegetation fractions were further simulated. The latter results indicate that urbanization level has a significant effect on the extremities of urban climatological parameters and spatial extent of the induced impacts. Furthermore, the effect of urbanization level on the mean urban outdoor thermal discomfort (UOTD) level was significant (with an increase of 0.7 °C, 0.64 °C and 0.04 observed) for temperature humidity index (THI), effective temperature index (ETI) and relative strain index (RSI), respectively. However, a non-significant (at 95% level) effect of urbanization level on the extremities of UOTD indices was observed. |
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Keywords: | Urbanization effect Urban heat island Tropical environment - Klang Valley, Malaysia WRF/UCM/Noah Human thermal comfort Near-surface meteorology |
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