Analysis of spatial and temporal distribution patterns of temperatures in urban and rural areas: Making urban environmental climate maps for supporting urban environmental planning and management in Hiroshima

Abstract

Urban planning incorporating mitigation of the urban warming which is due to urban heat island phenomena and climate change is needed. However, such planning is not realized. That is apparently because the urban climate phenomenon is difficult to understand for stakeholders: citizens, planners, architects, specialists, and so on. Urban Environmental Climate Maps (UECMs) are therefore proposed as one of the decision support tools for the urban warming mitigation. Accordingly, the authors intend to produce UECMs in Hiroshima as the final goal of this study. Therefore, for the production of UECMs, this study aims to analyze the relationship between spatial temperature distribution and the comprehensive factors using observed data and numerical simulation results and perform climate zoning based on these results in Hiroshima. This study progressed via the following steps: 1) classifying Hiroshima area into the plain area and the mountain area; 2) analysis on the causes of temperature distribution based on observed data in the plain area; 3) analysis on the effect of sea breeze on summer diurnal temperature distribution patterns; 4) analysis on the causes of temperature distributions based on observed data in the mountain area; and 5) urban climate zoning and construction of UECMs.