Measuring and Monitoring Urban Heat Islands in the Developing Countries: The Case Studies of Shanghai and Bangkok

The rapid economic development and urbanization the developing countries have experienced during the last several decades have brought upon dramatic environmental change. The urban heat island phenomenon, which has been well documented and researched in high- and mid- latitude cities in developed countries, has often been attributed to causing severe problems in the large cities in the developing countries, such as energy shortage caused by increase of energy use for air-conditioning, air pollution and living conditions deterioration. As economic development, urbanization and population growth continue in the developing countries, urban heat island will affect more and more people's lives in the 21st century. The needs are acute to document and study urban heat islands in those countries in order to better understand their formation and impacts, particularly, possible mitigation of their negative effects.

In response to these needs, we have been experimenting with various observation techniques and analyzing data collected from Shanghai and Bangkok since 1996, as a part of the Core Research Project for Environmental Science Technology funded by the Japanese Science and Technology Corporation. We identified an integrated approach that utilizes GPS (Global Positioning System) mobile observation techniques and automatic ground monitoring stations as the most direct, easy-to-implement and cost-effective way to make climatic observations and collect real-time-data in those cities. Through international collaboration, we have (1) established automated observation systems; (2) collected and analyzed first-hand climatic data from Shanghai and Bangkok to characterize urban heat island; (3) gained the ability of remote-monitoring urban heat islands in those two cities for a long term.

This paper illustrates our approach and presents several findings about the urban heat island formation mechanism emerged from our research. The research approach we have identified and successfully implemented should be transferable, especially to studies of urban climate in other low- and mid- latitude cities in the developing countries. Our findings in Shanghai and Bangkok are not only useful to the local governments in their urban planning and environmental protection efforts, but also shed light on the urban heat island research in general.

(I intend to enter the competition for the best student papers and posters.)