The Use of a Decision Support System for Sustainable Urbanization and Thermal Comfort in Adaptation to Climate Change Actions—The Case of the Wrocław Larger Urban Zone (Poland)

Jan Kazak

doi:10.3390/su10041083

Abstract

The increasing level of antropopression has a negative impact on environmental resources and has reached the level of our planetary boundaries. One limitation is land use change caused by urbanization. Global policies prove the need to undertake action in order to develop more sustainable human settlements, which would be adapted better to potential future climate change effects. Among such changes are the increase of average temperatures and extreme events like heat waves. Those changes are more severe in urban areas due to land use development, and result in the urban heat island effect (UHI), which has a negative impact on the thermal comfort of citizens. The paper presents a decision support system that can be used for the assessment of areas to the potential exposure to the UHI effect. The system integrates scenario analysis, land use modelling in cellular automata (Metronamica), and an indicator-based assessment in a geographic information system (ArcGIS). The applicability of the model is illustrated through developing scenarios for the future land use allocation of the Wrocław Larger Urban Zone (Poland). The results of the calculations show which scenario is the least vulnerable to UHI effects. Moreover, for each scenario, cores of urban areas were identified, in which certain urban design patterns accounting for adaptation to climate change could be implemented. The study provides a guideline for local authorities on where to focus actions in order to create more sustainable urban structures and to better adapt to climate change and environmental extremes.

Highlights

The problem of climate change and the need to define environmental restrictions for human activity was already raised in the early 1970s by the Club of Rome
The research was based on a four-step methodology: (1) modelling of trends in urban development changes based on cellular automata, (2) development of scenarios of different policy implementation, (3) projection of potential future land uses according to defined scenarios, and (4) urban structures assessment of the context exposure to the urban heat island effect (UHI) impact
Metronamica is a spatial decision support system based on cellular automata, which allows for the preparation of projections of potential future changes in land use in different scenarios [61,63]

Summary

Introduction

The problem of climate change and the need to define environmental restrictions for human activity was already raised in the early 1970s by the Club of Rome. Their report from 1972 broadly describes the issues of the use of non-renewable natural resources and environmental pollution, as well as the necessity to define boundaries to growth and the state of balance for future development. According to the current view, many factors influence the condition of the environment, including both direct factors affecting natural resources or the climate, as well as a number of indirect factors that affect the whole environment. These indirect factors include, inter alia: emissions to the environment, consumption, inequalities and social tensions, energy consumption, life expectancy and fertility, and population and lifestyle. There is an urgent need to limit current the consumption patterns of spatial resources and for a rational use of the areas that are subject to the processes of urbanization

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