Intra-urban Microclimate Investigation in Urban Heat Islands: A Novel Experimental Transect Monitoring and Startup Findings from Implementation in Historical City

Abstract

Monitoring microclimate variables within cities with high accuracy is anongoing challenge for a better urban resilience to climate change. Assessingthe intra-urban characteristics of a city is of vital importance for ensuringfine living standards for citizens. Here, a novel mobile microclimate stationis applied for monitoring the main microclimatic variables regulating urbanenvironment as well as directionally monitoring shortwave radiation and illuminance and hence evaluate the effect of urban surfaces and anthropogenicheat. We performed day-time and evening-time monitoring campaigns withina historical city in Italy, characterized by substantial urban structure differentiations. We found significant intra-urban variations concerning variables suchas air temperature and shortwave radiation. Moreover, the proposed experimental framework may capture, for the very first time, significant directionalvariations with respect to Shortwave radiation and illuminance across the cityat microclimate scale. The presented mobile station represents therefore thekey missing piece for exhaustively identifying urban environmental qualityand data driven modelling toward risk and resilience planning. It can betherefore used in combination with satellite data, stable weather station orother mobile stations, e.g. bicycle and wearable sensing techniques, througha citizens’ science approach in smart, livable, and sustainable cities in the near future.