Potential thermal constraints for sustainable industrial city: refined simulation and prediction of extreme urban heat island effect

Abstract

Extreme urban heat islands (E-UHIs) have caused radical changes in urban climates. The lack of refined extreme thermal environment simulation models (ETESM) hinders research on the spatial evolution of E-UHI, which increases the uncertainty for managers to make sustainable decisions. Here, considering both the heating of industrial land and the heat transfer of surrounding facilities, a refined ETESM is constructed. Assuming four scenarios: maintain current trend (MtS), economically oriented scenario (EcS), environmentally oriented scenario (EnS), green transformation scenario (GtS), the future potential constraints of the E-UHI are simulated and predicted, thus determining the sustainable development decision in industrial city. The results indicate that there is significant spatial consistency between simulated temperature and actual temperature at both city scale (Pearson'r = 0.924, P<0.001) and industrial land scale (Pearson'r = 0.948, P<0.001). The average temperature under four scenarios shows: EcS>MtS>GtS>EnS. The average SST of EnS and GtS was 1.36℃ and 1.06℃ lower than that of MtS, respectively. Considering the dual constraints of environmental livability and economic sustainability, GtS is the best decision to achieve the sustainable development in industrial city. This simulation-driven study provides support for E-UHI mitigation and sustainable development of industrial city.