The urban climate of Basel/Switzerland: analysis, investigation and perspectives using remote sensing and GIS techniques : analysis, investigation and perspectives using remote sensing and GIS techniques

The influence of different built-up types on the local urban climate has been an important consideration in the planning of historic and ancient cities. Adaptation to local climate effects has shaped the visual and conceptual appearance of any city ever since. Industrialization and increasing urbanization, accompanied with a certain densification and vertical growth, have led to different built-up types influencing their own microclimatic environment. The effects have been documented and verified with measurements since 200 years. From that time on, improvements in measurement systems, new technologies, growing data archives and increasing computation power enable undreamed possibilities in studying the urban climate dynamics. Most of the recent developments in urban climatology have been addressing the different thermal behavior of certain zones within urban environments. The scientific investigations of this work are therefore first focused on the discussion of this conception as a tool in urban climatology. Furthermore, the morphological characteristics defining these so-called ‘local climate zones’ are used to investigate the connection between land cover and land surface temperature. As a consequence of these promising investigations, an empirical model enabling to predict the air temperature distribution throughout the city is developed. Based on the dependence of point measurements of air temperature on the urban morphology and surface temperature, the model was already successfully applied for a heat stress assessment during the 2018 heat wave in Basel.