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Ecology and Environment   > Home   > Urban Risks   > Issue

Vol 8 - Issue 1

Urban Risks


List of Articles

Are today topographic data suitable for urban climate study?
Anne Ruas, Florence Jacquinod, Zohra Mhedhbi, Florian Betou

Climate change is shaking up research agendas and urban planning priorities. A number of events, including floods and heatwaves, are disrupting metropolitan areas. Urban redevelopment to meet these challenges is costly and takes time. Numerical simulation is a great tool for studying urban development scenarios and the effectiveness of development solutions. Numerical models of the urban climate exist and are gradually being improved by the scientific community. These models are parameterised, among other things, by geographical data describing mineral surfaces (buildings, asphalt floors), non-mineral surfaces (water surfaces, herbaceous soils, bare permeable soils) and tree canopies. In this article we study the suitability of existing topographic data for parameterising climate models. We begin by recalling the importance of database specifications for understanding the gap between the real world and the content of databases. We then describe strategies for constructing land cover data suitable for studying the urban climate using national reference systems and in the absence of such data. Finally, we consider the potential contribution of very large-scale data, such as BIM, to the study of urban climates. In conclusion, we propose an improvement in the specifications of national geodatabases to better meet the needs of urban planning in the context of climate change.


Geoclimatic modeling: tools, limits and outlooks
Jérémy Bernard, Thomas Leduc, Auline Rodler, Alexandre Merville, Hiba Hamdi

Today, urban climate diagnostic tools can be useful to local authorities and cities: they provide input for urban planning and development project design at different spatial scales, in a context of mitigating both global climate change and local climate heat peaks. In the following paper, we identify and list diagnostic tools, and mainly focus on geoclimatic ones. The latter have the particularity of requiring geomatics and geographic data to provide useful outputs for diagnosing overheating in cities. A classification of these tools is presented, based on four criteria. The first criteria is based on how the urban fabric is considered by each of the tools: simplified or detailed. The second criteria is the type of output produced by the software: it contains physical quantities or qualitative information (e.g. shadow or sunlit). The third criteria is relative to the choice of the problem-solving approach: physical vs statistical? The last criteria is what type of physics the software tool addresses (air temperature, wind, radiation, etc.). Finally, tools are sorted according to this classification and their relation to geomatics further described. It emerges that each tool has been developed for a particular need and from a specific point of view. This point of view will also help to explain the strengths, weaknesses and simplifications of each tool. Lastly, it highlights areas where software development, or even model development, require the attention of the GIS sci-ences.


Measurement and spatialization of climate and air quality data in urban environments in France
Sarah Duché, Vincent Dubreuil, Malika Madelin, Vincent Dupuis, Xavier Foissard, Yann Gripay, Sandra Rome, Sylvie Servigne

The urban heat island and urban air pollution, major health risks in cities, can be measured by networks of fixed stations or mobile measurements in urban environments. Protocols have been set up to ensure that climate and air pollution issues are representative at different spatial and temporal scales. The aim of this article is to present the existing measurement networks, the protocols implemented in French research, and the spatial representations of the data derived from these measurements. This overview provides an insight into the scientific and technical issues involved in setting up climate and air pollution measurements.

Other issues :

2024

Volume 24- 8

Issue 1

2023

Volume 23- 7

Issue 1

2022

Volume 22- 6

Issue 1

2021

Volume 21- 5

Issue 1

2020

Volume 20- 4

Issue 1

2019

Volume 19- 3

Issue 1

2018

Volume 18- 2

Issue 1


2017

Volume 17- 1

Issue 1