High resolution decision maps for urban planning: a combined analysis of urban flooding and thermal stress potential in Asia and Europe

Urban flooding and thermal stress have become key issues for
many cities around the world. With the continuing effects of climate
change, these two issues will become more acute and will add to the
serious problems already experienced in dense urban areas. Therefore, the
sectors of public health and disaster management are in the need of tools
that can assess the vulnerability to floods and thermal stress. The present
paper deals with the combination of innovative tools to address this
challenge. Three cities in different climatic regions with various urban
contexts have been selected as the pilot areas to demonstrate these tools.
These cities are Tainan (Taiwan), Ayutthaya (Thailand) and Groningen
(Netherlands). For these cities, flood maps and heat stress maps were
developed and used for the comparison analysis. The flood maps produced
indicate vulnerable low-lying areas, whereas thermal stress maps indicate
open, unshaded areas where high Physiological Equivalent Temperature
(PET) values (thermal comfort) can be expected. The work to date
indicates the potential of combining two different kinds of maps to identify
and analyse the problem areas. These maps could be further improved and
used by urban planners and other stakeholders to assess the resilience and
well-being of cities. The work presented shows that the combined analysis
of such maps also has a strong potential to be used for the analysis of other
challenges in urban dense areas such as air and water pollution, immobility
and noise disturbance.