Abstract
Monitoring microclimate variables within cities with high accuracy is an ongoing challenge for a better urban resilience to climate change. Assessing the intra-urban characteristics of a city is of vital importance for ensuring fine living standards for citizens. Here, a novel mobile microclimate station is applied for monitoring the main microclimatic variables regulating urban and intra-urban environment, as well as directionally monitoring shortwave radiation and illuminance and hence systematically map for the first time the effect of urban surfaces and anthropogenic heat. We performed day-time and night-time monitoring campaigns within a historical city in Italy, characterized by substantial urban structure differentiations. We found significant intra-urban variations concerning variables such as air temperature and shortwave radiation. Moreover, the proposed experimental framework may capture, for the very first time, significant directional variations with respect to shortwave radiation and illuminance across the city at microclimate scale. The presented mobile station represents therefore the key missing piece for exhaustively identifying urban environmental quality, anthropogenic actions, and data driven modelling toward risk and resilience planning. It can be therefore used in combination with satellite data, stable weather station or other mobile stations, e.g. wearable sensing techniques, through a citizens’ science approach in smart, livable, and sustainable cities in the near future.
Highlights
Monitoring microclimate variables within cities with high accuracy is an ongoing challenge for a better urban resilience to climate change
Richard et al.[43] employed an extended network of 47 fixed air temperature sensors for identifying thermal zones within the city of Dijon, France during a 3-week heatwave. Another sensor network of high density is established by the Birmingham Urban Climate Laboratory and comprises 29 sensors distributed within the entire city of Birmingham[44]
This study aims to contribute towards detailed monitoring techniques that can identify the environmental quality of urban areas and safeguard fine standards of the corresponding risk and resilience planning
Summary
Monitoring microclimate variables within cities with high accuracy is an ongoing challenge for a better urban resilience to climate change. Richard et al.[43] employed an extended network of 47 fixed air temperature sensors for identifying thermal zones within the city of Dijon, France during a 3-week heatwave Another sensor network of high density is established by the Birmingham Urban Climate Laboratory and comprises 29 sensors distributed within the entire city of Birmingham[44]. Results of such studies are of critical importance since gauge the magnitude of local phenomena, such as UHI, and shed light on the corresponding mechanisms of urban climate and help towards efficient countermeasures. Since in most cases meteorological stations are sparsely distributed, data retrieved from this method represent a point-wise momentum of each microclimatic variable and not the overall footprint and the corresponding spatial patterns[16]
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