Climate Change and Cooling Cities

This edited book provides a solid foundation for future research on cooling cities, climate change impacts on cities and urban environments, and innovative mitigation and adaptation strategies. With ever-increasing climate change impacts on our living environments and continuous calamities and natural disasters around the world, we urge for new approaches, apt action, and adequate support to boost cooling strategies for the built environments. To achieve this goal, research, practice, and policy could do much more to provide us with new pathways to achieve sustainable development.    

This book is a comprehensive collection of theoretical perspectives and global case study examples focused on three core areas of (1) concepts, theories, and trends, (2) mitigation and adaptation strategies, and (3) policies. 

The book is of use to various stakeholders and more importantly to urban specialists, planners and designers, policymakers, academics, practitioners, and developers. We urge them to mitigate climate change before it gets too late. We are confident the book could provide readers with new ideas, strategies, and directions that could lighten up the path toward new actions, policies, and innovation.

Introduction to the Book – Climate Change and Cities.- Concepts, Theories, and Trends.- Urban Heat Mitigation Strategies.- Biophilic Design.- Warming Cities in Pakistan.- Rethinking Urban Heat Island.- Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies.- Contribution of Water Bodies to the Mitigation of UHI Effect in Urban Canyon.- The Challenges of Cooling Rapidly Growing Cities.- Traditional Dwellings in Four Middle Eastern Cities: Adaptation Strategies to Harsh Climate.- Urban Thermal Environment Under Urban Expansion.- Climate-responsive Design.- Dynamic Annual Solstice Patterns and Static Urban Morphology.- SkyHelios and RayMan Model.- Policies.- Urbanisation and Urban Heat Islands in Mekong Delta City.- Thermal Comfort Assessment Frameworks.- Climate Justice in Vulnerable Groups.- Perspective of Biometeorology of Tropical Climate.- Conclusions and Future Directions.

Ali Cheshmehzangi is the World’s top 2% field leader, recognised by Stanford University. He is an urbanist and urban designer by profession and by heart. He studies cities and city transitions, sustainable urbanism, and integrated urban design strategies. He has recently taken a senior leadership and management role at Qingdao City University (QCU). He is Professor in Architecture and Urban Planning, Director of the Center for Innovation in Teaching, Learning, and Research, and Advisor to the Department’s international communications at QCU. Over 11 years at his previous institute, Ali was Full Professor in Architecture and Urban Design, Head of the Department of Architecture and Built Environment, Founding Director of the Urban Innovation Lab, Director of Center for Sustainable Energy Technologies, Interim Head of Research Group for Sustainable Built Environment, and Director of Digital Design Lab. He was Visiting Professor and now Research Associate of the Network for Education and Research on Peace and Sustainability (NERPS), Hiroshima University, Japan. So far, Ali has published over 300 journal papers, articles, conference papers, book chapters, and reports. His other 13 books are titled ‘Smart-Eco Cities in China: Trends and City Profiles 2016’ (2016), ‘Designing Cooler Cities’ (2017), the award-winning ‘Eco-development in China’ (2018), ‘Sustainable Urban Development in the Age of Climate Change’ (2019), ‘Identity of Cities and City of Identities’ (2020), the double award-winning ‘The City in Need’ (2020), ‘Urban Memory in City Transitions’ (2021), ‘Sustainable Urbanism in China’ (2021), ‘China’s Sustainability Transitions’ (2021), ‘Urban Health, Sustainability, and Peace in the Day the World Stopped’ (2021), ‘Green Infrastructure in Chinese Cities’ (2022), ‘ICT, Cities, and Reaching Positive Peace’ (2022), and ‘China’s City Cluster Development in the Race to Carbon Neutrality’ (2022). Ali is globally known for his research on ‘urban sustainability’.  

Baojie He is a Professor of Energy and Sustainable Built Environment at School of Architecture and Urban Planning, and the leader of the Centre for Climate-Resilient and Low-Carbon Cities, Chongqing University. Baojie is also the Research Fellow at Network for Education and Research on Peace and Sustainability, Hiroshima University, Japan. Baojie He was a Postdoc Research Fellow, Research Associate, PhD researcher, at UNSW Sydney, Australia. Baojie is working on the technologies of Cool Cities and Communities and Net Zero Carbon Built Environment. Baojie has published more than 110 peer-reviewed papers in high-ranking and delivered invited talks in reputable conferences. Baojie has a H-index of 42 (Scopus). Baojie has been involved in several large research projects on energy and built environment in Australia. Baojie has been invited to act Topic Editor-in-Chief, Leading Guest Editor, Associate Editor, Editorial Board Member, Conference Chair, Sessional Chair, Scientific Committee of a variety of reputable international journals and conferences. Baojie received the Highly Cited Researcher Title (Clarivate) in 2022, the Sustainability Young Investigator Award in 2022, the Green Talents Award (Germany) in 2021, and National Scholarship for Outstanding Foreign Students (China) in 2019. Baojie was ranked as one of the Single-year & Career 100,000 global scientists (2%) by the Mendeley in 2020, 2021 and 2022.

Ayyoob Sharifi is Professor at the IDEC Institute, Hiroshima University. His research is mainly at the interface of urbanism and climate change mitigation and adaptation. He has published over 100 articles on issues related to urban planning, design, and management. Ayyoob actively contributes to global change research programs such as the Future Earth and has served as a lead author for the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Before joining Hiroshima University, he was the Executive Director of the Global Carbon Project (GCP)-a Future Earth core project-leading the urban flagship activity of the project which is focused on conducting cutting-edge research for supporting climate change mitigation and adaptation in cities.

Andreas Matzarakis studied meteorology at the Ludwigs-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) Munich, and completed his dissertation on the bioclimate of Greece in 1995 at the Aristoteles University in Thessaloniki. Between 1995 and 2001, he served as a research assistant for the Meteorological Institute of the University of Freiburg. He wrote his habilitation on the 'thermal component of the urban climate'. Between October 2001 and July 2015, he was a senior research associate at the University of Freiburg, and was subsequently appointed an extraordinary Professor in October 2006.&