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Climate-Sensitive Urban Design for Heatwave Mitigation
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Climate-Sensitive Urban Design for Heatwave Mitigation

A Special Issue of Earth (ISSN 2673-4834).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2026 | Viewed by 4555

Editors

Dr. Fatih Adiguzel

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Transportation Services, Vocational School of Technical Sciences, Bitlis Eren University, Bitlis 13000, Türkiye
Interests: GIS; remote sensing; urban heat islands; climate-sensitive urban design; thermal comfort and environmental modeling
Dr. Enes Karadeniz

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Geography, Faculty of Arts and Science, Inonu University, Malatya, Türkiye
Interests: climate change; land use/land cover (LULC); ecology; biodiversity conservation; computer science information systems; remote sensing; physical geography
Prof. Dr. Halil Baris Ozel

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Forest Engineering, Faculty of Forestry, Bartın University, Bartın 74100, Türkiye
Interests: forest; forestry; environment; silviculture; climate change; afforestation; nursery tech; genetic
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Rapid urbanization and the escalating frequency of extreme heat events pose significant challenges to public health and urban sustainability. This Special Issue aims to explore the integration of climate-sensitive design strategies into urban planning to mitigate the impacts of heatwaves and the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect.

We invite contributions that utilize advanced geospatial technologies, including Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS), to analyze urban thermal environments. Potential topics include the relationship between land use/land cover (LULC) and surface temperatures, the efficacy of Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) such as urban green and blue infrastructures, and the application of bioclimatic indices (e.g., PET, TCI, HCI and UTCI) in diverse urban contexts.

Furthermore, this issue encourages research on predictive modeling using machine learning and deep learning algorithms to simulate future urban climate scenarios and evaluate the performance of mitigation strategies. By bridging the gap between climatology and urban design, this Special Issue seeks to provide actionable insights for planners and policymakers to create resilient, thermally comfortable cities.

Dr. Fatih Adiguzel
Dr. Enes Karadeniz
Prof. Dr. Halil Baris Ozel
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Earth is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • nature-based solutions (NBS)
  • urban heat island (UHI)
  • green and blue infrastructure
  • thermal comfort (mPET)
  • remote sensing and GIS
  • urban microclimate
  • climate-sensitive urban design
  • machine learning in urban planning

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Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

27 pages, 5772 KB  
Article
Selected Energy-Related Emissions and Indicative Forest Carbon Uptake: An IPCC-Based Screening Assessment
by Merve Erol, Meral Korkmaz and Alban Kuriqi
Earth 2026, 7(5), 154; https://doi.org/10.3390/earth7050154 - 17 Sep 2026
Viewed by 239
Abstract
Carbon-accounting studies of small, lightly industrialized provinces remain underrepresented despite their relevance to regional climate policy. This study quantifies energy-related CO2 emissions from selected sources in Tunceli Province, Eastern Türkiye, for 2022 using the IPCC Tier 1 methodology, with an activity-based bottom-up [...] Read more.
Carbon-accounting studies of small, lightly industrialized provinces remain underrepresented despite their relevance to regional climate policy. This study quantifies energy-related CO2 emissions from selected sources in Tunceli Province, Eastern Türkiye, for 2022 using the IPCC Tier 1 methodology, with an activity-based bottom-up road-transport estimate as a sensitivity analysis. Because the official grid factor is published on a CO2-equivalent basis, we report the aggregate in Gg CO2-eq yr−1. Under the adopted activity-data assumptions, the selected sources were estimated to produce 288.47 Gg CO2-eq yr−1. The fuel-based road-transport series reaches a minimum in 2020, although observed vehicle-activity data are lacking. As an illustrative scenario conditional on the assumed coefficients, applying a literature-derived gross-uptake coefficient range of 2–5 t CO2 ha−1 yr−1, whose local applicability could not be established, to 137,718 ha of productive closed-canopy forest gives an indicative gross sequestration potential of 275.44–688.59 Gg CO2 yr−1; the upper bound exceeds the compiled emissions, and the lower bound does not. So the comparison shows only that forest uptake capacity is of the same order of magnitude as emissions, not an observed net balance or an operating sink. Under ceteris paribus assumptions, a 75% reduction in residential coal use would avoid about 97.85 Gg CO2 yr−1 (33.9% of the baseline), roughly 42% of which would be reintroduced by natural-gas substitution. Residential heating decarbonization, building efficiency, and forest conservation emerge as mitigation priorities for small forest-rich provinces. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Climate-Sensitive Urban Design for Heatwave Mitigation)
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24 pages, 6911 KB  
Article
Regional Differences in the Potential Drivers of Grassland Degradation from the Perspective of Partial-Order Theory: A Case Study of Ordos
by Yu Feng, Batunacun, Chang An, Boyu Wang, Yong Mei, Dandan Zhou and Kaixin Liu
Earth 2026, 7(4), 118; https://doi.org/10.3390/earth7040118 - 13 Jul 2026
Viewed by 464
Abstract
Grassland degradation (GD) varies markedly across space. Identifying potential drivers at the county level enables precise grassland conservation and supports a win–win between economic development and ecological protection. However, most existing studies adopt a single, region-wide lens and lack county-level analyses. [...] Read more.
Grassland degradation (GD) varies markedly across space. Identifying potential drivers at the county level enables precise grassland conservation and supports a win–win between economic development and ecological protection. However, most existing studies adopt a single, region-wide lens and lack county-level analyses. Focusing on Ordos, we conduct a county-level assessment and rank potential driver groups using partial-order theory. The results indicated the following: (1) from 2000 to 2020, a total of 6.9% (6026 km2) of grassland was restored, while approximately 5.0% (4372 km2) underwent degradation, with grassland recovery outpacing degradation; (2) urbanisation and economic development were identified as the leading drivers in five counties, followed by human activities and climate (three), and livelihood development (one); and (3) Ordos should adopt county-level differentiated management strategies: controlling urban and industrial expansion in urbanisation and economic-development-dominated counties, regulating grazing and land-use activities in human-activity-dominated counties, implementing dynamic grazing bans and drought preparedness in climate-dominated counties, promoting livelihood diversification in livelihood-development-dominated counties, and applying priority-based integrated governance in multi-driver counties. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Climate-Sensitive Urban Design for Heatwave Mitigation)
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24 pages, 6346 KB  
Article
Assessing the Impact of Urban Spatial Pattern Changes on Heat Mitigation by Green and Blue-Green Infrastructure Using the InVEST Model
by Carla Iruri-Ramos, Karla Vilca-Campana, Lorenzo Carrasco-Valencia, Andrea Chanove-Manrique, María Rosa Cervera Sardá and Berly Cárdenas-Pillco
Earth 2026, 7(3), 82; https://doi.org/10.3390/earth7030082 - 19 May 2026
Viewed by 1083
Abstract
Green and blue-green infrastructures are key for reducing the effects of urban heat islands driven by rapid city expansion. However, the spatial relationship between land-cover patterns and air-temperature distribution, plus the combined cooling effects of green and blue spaces, remains insufficiently explored. This [...] Read more.
Green and blue-green infrastructures are key for reducing the effects of urban heat islands driven by rapid city expansion. However, the spatial relationship between land-cover patterns and air-temperature distribution, plus the combined cooling effects of green and blue spaces, remains insufficiently explored. This study applies the InVEST Urban Cooling Model to analyze the spatiotemporal changes in land use and their impact on the heat-mitigation service provided by green and blue spaces in the city of Arequipa, Peru, between 2006 and 2024. Furthermore, land-use change is projected for 2030 using the CA-Markov model and the InVEST Scenario Generator tool. These projections enabled the evaluation of two heat-mitigation scenarios by modifying the spatial distribution of green, blue-green, and urbanized areas. The findings indicate that urbanized areas doubled over the measurement period. The greatest loss of agricultural land and tree-covered areas occurred between 2020 and 2024, with a decline of up to 5%. Correspondingly, the percentage of low heat mitigation index areas (0.1–0.2 and ≤0.1) increased by 3.8%, reaching a total increase of up to 6.7%. Scenario simulations showed that reducing both green and blue-green infrastructure had similar impacts on the heat-mitigation index, providing valuable insights for urban planning and environmental management. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Climate-Sensitive Urban Design for Heatwave Mitigation)
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25 pages, 11704 KB  
Article
Impact of Impervious Surface Expansion on Urban Thermal Environment Across Tropical Southeast Asian Megacities: Reliable Assessment Through Foundation Model Embeddings
by Sitthisak Moukomla, Phurith Meeprom and Kritchayan Intarat
Earth 2026, 7(3), 76; https://doi.org/10.3390/earth7030076 - 8 May 2026
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2105
Abstract
Rapid urbanization in tropical Southeast Asia is transforming pervious land into impervious surfaces, intensifying the surface urban heat island (SUHI) effect and increasing the need for consistent urban thermal monitoring. This study assesses how impervious surface area (ISA) expansion relates to the urban [...] Read more.
Rapid urbanization in tropical Southeast Asia is transforming pervious land into impervious surfaces, intensifying the surface urban heat island (SUHI) effect and increasing the need for consistent urban thermal monitoring. This study assesses how impervious surface area (ISA) expansion relates to the urban thermal environment across five tropical megacities (Bangkok, Jakarta, Manila, Kuala Lumpur, and Ho Chi Minh City). AlphaEarth geospatial foundation model embeddings were used to reduce observation gaps caused by persistent cloud-cover, while MODIS land surface temperature (LST) was used to quantify the thermal response. We compared AlphaEarth classification against conventional Sentinel-2/NDVI approaches and an additional fairer annual Sentinel-2 full-band-plus-index Random Forest baseline, quantified ISA expansion for 2017–2024, and related ISA fraction to dry-season LST at 1 km resolution. Repeated random-holdout tests based on Google Earth Engine samples showed AlphaEarth mean IoU = 0.866 (95% CI: 0.857–0.875), compared with 0.758 (0.749–0.767) for the annual Sentinel-2 full-band-plus-index baseline and 0.686 (0.674–0.698) for the best single-date 5-index baseline. Spatial-block holdout tests gave similar but slightly lower values (AlphaEarth IoU = 0.859; annual Sentinel-2 baseline = 0.747; best single-date baseline = 0.673). Ho Chi Minh City experienced the fastest ISA expansion (+11.0 percentage points; slope = 1.48 pp yr−1, 95% CI: 1.06–1.91), whereas Bangkok reached the highest ISA fraction (65.1%). ISA fraction and LST were consistently and positively associated across cities and years (Pearson r = 0.748–0.900), and mean SUHI intensity during 2017–2024 ranged from 4.01 °C in Bangkok to 8.51 °C in Manila. These results indicate that foundation model embeddings can support cloud-resilient mapping of impervious surface change and thereby improve assessment of tropical urban thermal environments, while also highlighting the need for independent ground-truth validation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Climate-Sensitive Urban Design for Heatwave Mitigation)
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