The Urban Climatic Map

The impacts of urbanisation on climate are now generally widely understood and treated as a matter of concern by most. Characteristics such the ‘urban heat island’ effect, in which the air temperature of our cities is consistently higher than that of surrounding rural landscapes, are measurable and their impacts have been extensively documented. These are not abstract and academic concepts: manmade climate change has profound implications for sea levels and flooding, for wildlife species and agriculture, for health and wellbeing. Generally, it is the least economically advantaged in society who are least able to mitigate these impacts and who suffer the most.

In this context, The Urban Climatic Map is an important book that systematically addresses a critically important subject of international relevance. Aimed at a specialist audience of climatologists, it is a challenging technical read for other built environment professionals and is not intended for a lay audience. It is an academic textbook, edited by Prof Edward Ng and Chao Ren of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and brings together papers from dozens of contributors across a well organised series of 34 chapters. The inputs have come from a range of academics and climate experts located in universities and research institutions around the world. Prof Ng is a highly regarded expert within his field who has been widely published (I reviewed his book Designing High Density Cities in Urban Design issue 116).

The opening section introduces key concepts and ideas, while subsequent sections address case studies in large, medium-sized and small cities or settlements. The final section of the book explores forthcoming developments within the field, particularly those that follow advances in computational power and algorithmic complexity, looking at the potential applicability of the research to inform thinking about urban change at a series of scales. These last chapters are the most interesting and relevant to a non-specialist audience. They address the concern that one might otherwise have of academic discourse of narrow relevance. It is particularly encouraging that the final chapters identify the scales of strategic planning and spatial design activity and the varying forms of intervention that can follow from consideration of climatic effects. The interrelationships between built form, topography, air flow and temperature are intuitive in general but can now be assessed with scientific rigour and can inform the transformations that are underway in cities and settlements around the world.

The Urban Climatic Map is without apology an academic textbook, and follows the conventions of formatting, citation and referencing. For those studying or practicing within the field it will be an important resource and connection to the work of others. It is a shame, as tends to be the case in academic publishing, that illustrations are limited to black and white plates, when full colour would make the information more legible and engaging. Unlike Prof Ng’s previous book, the relationships to other built environment disciplines, and to a globally diverse set of locations, are clearly understood. The book is stronger for these connections in scale, discipline and context, and for those within its field is to be recommended.