Within the atmospheric environment, besides air pollution, the complex conditions of heat exchange are most significant for health, well-being, and efficiency of the human being. A state-of-the-art thermo-physiologically significant assessment of the thermal conditions results by applying a complete heat budget model (here: Klima-Michel-model) taking all mechanisms of heat exchange into account with due consideration of well adapted clothing. Thus air temperature, water vapour pressure, wind velocity and the short and long-wave radiant fluxes are the meteorological input variables. Epidemiological studies using mortality data clearly show that death rates increase with increasing distance from the comfort zone, both due to cold stress and to heat load. It is assumed that the thermal conditions are significant for morbidity, well-being, and efficiency of the human being also below the level of the extreme event of death.
A traditional aim of climatology is to present climate elements in climate maps, as it is also the aim of human bioclimatology. Selected results of the spatial representation of the thermal
conditions in terms of human heat budget will be presented by way of example showing approaches in different scales for different purposes (e.g. planning, climate impact research) by using GIS-techniques.
Particularily in urban areas the aim for planning is creating and safeguarding healthy conditions for life and work. Thus the
bioclimatological effects of man-made urban climate are important to know. To meet the needs of users (planners, authorities, descision makers and others in the field of environmental protection) an urban bioclimate model, UBIKLIM, has been developed. The approach is based on the principle that the meteorological conditions of heat exchange at a given location within an urban area depend on (1) the kind of land-use (settlement structure), (2) interactions between adjacent structures, and (3) the topography (local scale). The first problem can be solved by means of regression equations with planning data (canopy parameters) as independent variables which have been derived from simulations using a one-dimensional urban boundary model (MUKLIMO-1). Interactions and local influence of topography are dealt with by using a number of partly physical and partly empirical approaches. The total procedure requires a geographic information system (GIS) of high resolution (e.g. 10 m pixel) with planning data levels which are easily available to urban planners. Derived meteorological fields can be analyzed with the aid of the "Klima-Michel-model", thus providing a bioclimatological assessment of urban areas or just planning ideas on a scale of 1:10,000, appropriate for planning purposes. The different steps of the approach and some results will be presented.