Heat vs. Health: Home Office under a Changing Climate

Stressors are especially widespread in urban agglomerations. Common themes of built environment interventions that support health and well-being are blue and green infrastructure, indoor and outdoor air quality, thermal comfort, access to natural lighting, and acoustics. Given the current megatrends of increasing summer temperatures and the high popularity of home offices, we aimed at modeling thermal comfort changes of people working at home in three Austrian cities (Vienna, Innsbruck, and Graz) during the next decades until 2090. We present findings based on (I) an inter-disciplinary literature search and (II) indoor and outdoor climate simulations for actual and future climate scenarios. Based on the results, we discuss the potential impacts for work and human health and well-being, and we suggest a framework for the home office in "post-COVID-19 Austria” that integrates social, ecological, and economic aspects. The results of our study indicate that, in future climate scenarios, overheating of the interior can no longer be prevented without active cooling measures and nature-based solutions. Recommendations on the adjustment of behavior under climate change, including greening, adequate ventilation, and cooling techniques, are thus urgently needed for employees who are working from home in order to maintain physical and mental health and wellbeing.

Relationship between Lightning, Lightning Fire and Human Activities

Lightning is the main source of natural fire, and lightning fire and other types of forest fires together constitute the global forest fire system. It is generally believed that lightning fire, as a natural fire source, has nothing to do with human beings and is different from man-made fire sources, but in fact, human activities have inextricable links with the occurrence of lightning fire. Since 2019, due to the severe impact of COVID-19 lockdowns, non-essential activities and mobility have decreased, which has led to a significant decrease in pollutant concentrations and lightning. In this paper, we linked the lightning fire with modernization process of human beings, the expansion of habitation, the change of underlying surface, the development of prediction technology and firefighting technology, and the laws and regulations of the country, to explore the impact of human activities on the occurrences of lightning and the forest lightning fire. Lightning is the fire source of the three elements in lightning fire occurrence, the lightning that can cause lightning fire is mainly cloud-to-ground lightning. The human activities in recent decades have profoundly affected the content of aerosols in environment. Aerosols are the main factors affecting lightning, and the large amount of pollution aerosols emitted from urban areas, soot aerosols emitted from biomass combustion and urban heat island effect have all increased the probability of lightning occurrence. The average annual ground lightning density of different land cover types is obviously different, and the construction land has the highest average annual ground lightning density. Intense lightning in forest areas has a higher density and slope. Most of the forests are located in high altitude areas, which is consistent with previous studies showing high lightning frequency in high altitude areas. The lightning in forests is intenser, steeper and more destructive, so forest areas are prone to lightning strikes. Lightning has the characteristic of selective discharge, that is, it will discharge into some special areas, which are also known as lightning selection areas, such as the place groundwater is exposed to the ground, where different conductive soils are connected, and where there are underground metal mines, such as copper and iron mines, and underground lake and water reservoir areas. Lightning strikes are caused by changes in soil conductivity caused by human activities such as mining waste rock sites, reservoir construction on mountain tops, and power transmission lines in mountainous areas. At the same time, due to the abundant trees in the mountainous area, it is also important to avoid the resulting lightning fire. With the development of lightning monitoring technology, a lightning location monitoring system has been established in some areas of China. Especially in 2021, the National Forestry and Grassland Administration launched the "Enlisting and Leading" emergency science and technology project of forest lightning fire prevention and control, and the project team has constructed a lightning fire sensing system in the Daxing'anling region with three-dimensional lightning full-wave detection network as the main body, covering the forest area of the Daxing'anling forest region, which can accurately locate the location of cloud-to-ground lightning in real time, improve the monitoring and warning ability of lightning fires, and improve the efficiency of lightning fire discovery. National laws and regulations indirectly affect lightning fires by affecting forest cover and climate change. This paper is expected to provide reference for the occurrence, prevention and control of forest lightning fire in the future, and provide a basis for the formulation of corresponding policies.

Urban Heat Island Mitigation Strategy based on Local Climate Zone Classification using Landsat 8 satellite imagery

Appropriate strategies on urban climate mitigation should be formulated by considering the physical morphology of the urban landscape. This study aimed to investigate, analyze, and promote possible strategies to mitigate Jakarta’s urban heat island (UHI) phenomena. Jakarta’s local climate zone (LCZ) was classified into 17 classes using Landsat 8 data and the random forest method. Land surface temperature (LST) characteristic in each LCZ class was analyzed from 2018, 2019 and 2020. The result revealed that most of the local climate zone in Jakarta is dominated by LCZ 6 (open low-rise) and LCZ 3 (compact low-rise), which is the typical residential area in Jakarta. However, the mean LST in 2018, 2019 and 2020 showed that LCZ 3 (compact low-rise) and LCZ 7 (lightweight low-rise) are the areas that were most likely causing high surface temperature with the highest UHI intensity. During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, LST in Jakarta decreased drastically in some parts of the area, especially in public facility such as airport. However, the LST value in low-rise areas (LCZ 3 and LCZ 7) remains higher than the other LCZ classes. Materials of the building and land cover play a significant role in raising the land surface temperature. Therefore, mitigation strategies for urban heat islands in Jakarta should be focused on such particular areas mentioned.

Urban Air Pollution, Urban Heat Island and Human Health: A Review of the Literature

Many cities of the world suffer from air pollution because of poor planning and design and heavy traffic in rapidly expanding urban environments. These conditions are exacerbated due to the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect. While there have been studies linking the built environment and air pollution with health, they have ignored the aggravating role of UHI. The past urban planning literature in this field has also ignored the science of materials, vehicles and air pollution, and technological solutions for reducing cumulative health impacts of air pollution and UHI. Air Pollution, built environment and human health are complex discussion factors that involve several different fields. The built environment is linked with human health through opportunities of physical activity and air quality. Recent planning literature focuses on creating compact and walkable urban areas dotted with green infrastructure to promote physical activity and to reduce vehicle emission-related air pollution. Reduced car use leading to reduced air pollution and UHI is implied in the literature. The literature from technology fields speaks to the issue of air pollution directly. Zero emission cars, green infrastructure and building materials that absorb air pollutants and reduce UHI fall within this category. This paper identifies main themes in the two streams of urban air pollution and UHI that impact human health and presents a systematic review of the academic papers, policy documents, reports and features in print media published in the last 10–20 years.

Sub-mesoscale observations of convective cold pools with a dense station network in Hamburg, Germany

From June to August 2020, an observational network of 103 meteorological ground-based stations covered the greater area (50 km × 35 km) of Hamburg (Germany) as part of the Field Experiment on Sub-mesoscale Spatio-Temporal variability at Hanseatic city of Hamburg (FESST@HH). The purpose of the experiment was to shed light on the sub-mesoscale (O(100) m–O(10) km) structure of convective cold pools that typically remain under-resolved in operational networks. During the experiment, 82 custom-built, low-cost APOLLO (Autonomous cold POoL LOgger) stations sampled air temperature and pressure with fast-response sensors at 1 s resolution to adequately capture the strong and rapid perturbations associated with propagating cold pool fronts. A secondary network of 21 weather stations with commercial sensors provided additional information on relative humidity, wind speed, and precipitation at 10 s resolution. The realization of the experiment during the COVID-19 pandemic was facilitated by a large number of volunteers who provided measurement sites on their premises and supported station maintenance. This article introduces the novel type of autonomously operating instruments, their measurement characteristics, and the FESST@HH data set10.25592/UHHFDM.10172;. A case study demonstrates that the network is capable of mapping the horizontal structure of the temperature signal inside a cold pool, and quantifying a cold pool's size and propagation velocity throughout its life cycle. Beyond its primary purpose, the data set offers new insights into the spatial and temporal characteristics of the nocturnal urban heat island and variations of turbulent temperature fluctuations associated with different urban and natural environments.

Spatial effect of anti-COVID measures on land surface temperature (LST) in urban areas: A case study of a medium-sized city

This case study investigates the magnitude and nature of the spatial effect generated by the anti-COVID measures on land surface temperature (LST) in the city of Targu Mures (Marosvasarhely), Romania. The measures were taken by the Romanian government during the state of emergency (March 16 - May 14, 2020) due to the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus pandemic. The study shows that - contrary to previous studies carried out on cities in China and India in most of the urban areas of Marosvasarhely LST has increased in the period of health emergency in 2020 concerning the large average of the years 2000-2019. Remote sensing data from the MODIS and the Landsat satellites show. that MODIS data, having a moderate spatial (approximately 1 km) but good temporal resolution (daily measurements), show a temperature increase of +0.78 degrees C, while Landsat data, having better spatial (30 m) but lower temporal resolution, show an even greater increase, +2.36 degrees C in the built-up areas. The difference in temperature increase is mainly due to the spatial resolution difference between the two TIR band sensors. The LST anomaly analysis performed with MODIS data also shows a positive anomaly increase of 1 degrees C. However, despite this increase, with the help of the hotspot-coldspot analysis of the Getis-Ord Gi* statistic we were able to identify 46 significant coldspots that showed a 1- 2 degrees C decrease of LST in April 2020 compared to the average of the previous years in April. Most of these coldspots correspond to factory areas, public transport epicenters, shopping centers, industrial polygons. and non-residential areas. This shows that anti-COVID measures in the medium-sized city of Marosvasarhely had many effects on LST in particular areas that have links to the local economy, trade. and transport. Paired sample t-test for areas identified with LST decrease shows that there is a statistically significant difference in the average LST observed before and after anti-COVID measures were applied. MODIS-based LST is satisfactory for recognizing patterns and trends at large or moderate geographical scales. However, for a hotspot-coldspot analysis of the urban heat islands, it is more suitable to use Landsat data.

Food Vertigo. Processi e dispositivi per la resilienza alimentare metropolitana

Analizzare i dati relativi all'aumento della popolazione, la sua localizzazione in aree metropolitane densamente abitate, intersecarli con le proiezioni relative ai cambiamenti delle prime 25 economie globali (FAO, 2020), ci consente di definire l'accesso al cibo - ovvero la necessity di soddisfare il fabbisogno minimo giornaliero di milioni di abitanti - e la sicurezza alimentare, come priorita planetaria. In quest'ottica di sostenibilita ambientale, molte citta hanno pensato allo sviluppo di un'agro-ecologia, adottando tecniche meno impattanti sia sull'ambiente che sulla salute delle persone, in modo da abbattere l'inquinamento e l'insorgere di potenziali malattie pericolose. Considerare sempre l'agricoltura urbana come dispositivo (Agamben, 2007) di alcune strategie di gestione delle aree metropolitane - ridurre l'inquinamento e l'impatto delle isole di calore Urban Heat Island (UHI), trasformare terrain vague ed aree abbandonate in servizi urbani, ecc. Queste riflessioni sul superamento dell'agricoltura urbana, attraverso l'innesco di dispositivi per il Vertical Farming ibridi ed interconnessi, sono state formalizzate nella proposta VN1 -https://media.proquest.com/media/hms/PFT/1/AZ63N?_a=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%3D%3D&_s=T%2B53vaAiZvBLvE8NwYCSvHXklTM%3D ERTIGO3 (Vertical Farming for Enhanced Resilience in a Trusted IoT-based post-pandemic Green Organization), come risposta al bando MIUR-FISR 2020.

Assessing urban heat island in Jakarta, Indonesia during the pandemic of Covid-19

Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia, is the most populated area in Indonesia, with a population of 10.56 million people or around 3.91% of the total Indonesian population. Jakarta has also become an important city in Indonesia as around 80% of Indonesian economic activity is located in this area. No doubt, the urban activity caused the air pollution to infuriate its microclimate, including the urban heat island phenomena. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Indonesia applied the partial lockdown for several areas to decrease virus transmission. Most of the transportation and commercial areas were closed, and most people worked from home. This significant shifting will affect the temperature and urban heat island conditions. Thus, the main objective of this research was to analyse the urban heat island during the early stage of the pandemic in Jakarta. We used Landsat 8 imagery to extract the land surface temperature (LST) and generated the urban heat island (UHI). The correlation was used to determine the relationship between the distribution of covid-19 cases with the UHI distribution. From the four different recording times (May, July, September, and December 2020) of Landsat 8 imagery, the highest UHI, 7.76°C was found in December 2020 (the late first year of the pandemic). The lowest UHI, 4.91°C was found in May 2020 (The early stage of the first year). Furthermore, the UHI hot spot moved from almost evenly in East Jakarta in May 2020, a tiny spot in East Jakarta in July and September 2020, and evenly distributed in Southeast Jakarta in December 2020. In addition, we found that the increase of covid-19 cases had a positive correlation with the UHI in Jakarta, which means the areas with the high UHI value have high new covid-19 cases. These results showed that the area with high activities is very prone to covid-19 transmission.

The Sustainable Composite Materials in Civil and Architectural Engineering

According to the United Nations, the epidemic has exacerbated poverty and weakened our ability to respond to long-term sustainability challenges. [...]SiC sludge qualifies as a potentially useful ingredient in the production of geopolymers containing metakaolin. [...]the hybrid material passed the burning test and demonstrated outstanding flame-retardant properties. [...]because of its thermal performance, BOFS offers a wide range of potential benefits in pavements, particularly for the purpose of achieving the goal of urban heat island mitigation by radiation cooling.

Assessment on Pedestrian-level Wind Around a Pocket Park with and Without Vegetation Inside Street Canyons

Creating a good local microclimate can alleviate urban heat islands and poor urban ventilation. During the COVID-19 epidemic, citizens' cross-city and cross-regional activities were restricted, and most activities were conducted in open/semi-open areas next to residential areas, and local pedestrians were also quantitatively explored. The new characteristics of the microclimate bring difficulties. The RNG k-ε model in the Reynolds time-average method is used to simulate and analyze the wind environment of a typical street valley with a pocket park in a hot summer and a cold winter, and explore whether there are plants in the pocket park. The results show that the results obtained by the used turbulence model, initial edge conditions and numerical method are in good agreement with the selected verification experimental results, which meet the needs of the wind environment simulation of the pocket park. Only under the action of the pocket park, the pedestrian area is dimensionless. The difference in wind speed can reach 0.5 compared to the time when there is no park. When the plants in the park are added, the average wind speed in the pedestrian area of ​​the surrounding street valley is less affected by the plants, and the dimensionless wind speed is only reduced by 0.1 in the core area of ​​the park. Pocket parks can significantly improve the low wind speed in pedestrian areas, and the research results can provide reference for the design of low-carbon livable blocks and microclimate simulation during the epidemic period.

Appraising Agroecological Urbanism: A Vision for the Future of Sustainable Cities

By the mid-century, urban areas are expected to house two-thirds of the world’s population of approximately 10 billion people. The key challenge will be to provide food for all with fewer farmers in rural areas and limited options for expanding cultivated fields in urban areas, with sustainable soil management being a fundamental criterion for achieving sustainability goals. Understanding how nature works in a fast changing world and fostering nature-based agriculture (such as low-input farming) are crucial for sustaining food systems in the face of worsening urban heat island (UHI) effects and other climatic variables. The best fit for the context is transformative agroecology, which connects ecological networks, sustainable farming approaches, and social movements through change-oriented research and action. Even though agroecology has been practiced for over a century, its potential to address the socioeconomic impact of the food system remained largely unexplored until recently. Agroecological approaches, which involve effective interactions between researchers, policy makers, farmers, and consumers, can improve social cohesion and socioeconomic synergies while reducing the use of various agricultural inputs. This review presents a timeline of agroecology transformation from the past to the present and discusses the possibilities, prospects, and challenges of agroecological urbanism toward a resilient urban future.

Developing Resilience to Emergencies: Evaluation of Thermal Indices and Outdoor Comfort Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic

This research discusses thermal indices and outdoor comfort before and during the Coronavirus Disease of 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in three counties in Connecticut (41.6032 degrees N, 73.0877 degrees W), United States. The counties are Fairfield, Hartford, and New Haven. Existing research noted that people residing in highly populated urban and low-income areas are disproportionately affected by the pandemic and subject to health, heat, and cold stress-related problems. As a result, the study is motivated to examine outdoor comfort and thermal indices in the counties that account for over 75% of the population in the state. The specific aim of the study is to examine outdoor comfort and thermal indices a year before and during the pandemic to determine if the pandemic significantly affects outdoor occupants and their overall well-being. Due to lesser activities observed during the pandemic than before the pandemic, the research questions include 1) Does the pandemic year provide a more comfortable thermal environment for outdoor occupants than the period before the pandemic? 2) Does the period provide a cleaner environment with no thermal or cold stress to occupants than before the pandemic? The research approaches include the field data recorded in 2019 and 2020. The research also utilized observations and mathematical models. The findings revealed that the mean monthly temperatures varied from -3.2 degrees C to 25.2 degrees C and relative humidity ranged from and 62.6-70.7%. The study revealed cold stress in wintertime, especially in Fairfield. Heat stress is also noted in summertime across the counties. New Haven is more prone to heat stress than other counties because of some factors (such as climate change, lesser land area, higher incidence from solar radiation, etc.). Higher thermal indices are reported in 2020 (during the pandemic) than the indices computed for 2019 (pre-pandemic) which could influence thermal comfort, health, and well-being of people. The indices are strongly influenced by outdoor temperatures and dew-point. A combination of some environmental variables such as temperature and wind speed also have significant effects on the indices. The study recommends that the use of clean energy for running infrastructure systems would help in mitigating the impact of climate change in various locations. The investigation suggests that a thorough evaluation of environmental conditions and interventions should be explored for developing resilience to emergencies in cities and urban areas. The research outcomes provide useful information for designers, planners, stakeholders, policymakers, etc., to develop pathways for achieving resilient zero-carbon cities in various places.