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The Urban Heat Island Under Climate Change: Analysis of Representative Urban Blocks in Northwestern Italy
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

The Urban Heat Island Under Climate Change: Analysis of Representative Urban Blocks in Northwestern Italy

Matteo Piro, Ilaria Ballarini, MP Tootkaboni, Vincenzo Corrado, Giovanni Pernigotto, Gregorio Borelli and Andrea Gasparella
Energies, Vol.19(3), pp.1-25
19
27/01/2026
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/10863/50959

Abstract

Sustainability and Safety for the Natural and built Environment Building and end-users archetypes Archetypes Urban heat island Urban building energy modeling Climate Change Weather
Urban populations are exposed to elevated local temperatures compared to surrounding rural areas due to the urban heat island (UHI) effect, which increases health risks and energy demand. The literature highlights that accurately quantifying UHIs at broader territorial scales remains challenging because of limited microscale climate data availability and, at the same time, the difficulty of increasing the spatial coverage of the outcomes. Within the PRIN2022-PNRR CRiStAll (Climate Resilient Strategies by Archetype-based Urban Energy Modeling) project, this work addresses these limitations by coupling Urban Building Energy Modeling with archetype-based representation of urban form and high-resolution climatic data. Urban archetypes are defined as representative microscale configurations derived from combinations of urban canyon geometries and building typologies, accounting for different climatic zones, use categories, and construction periods. The proposed methodology was applied to the city of Turin (Italy), where representative urban blocks were identified and modeled to evaluate key urban context metrics under short-, medium-, and long-term climate scenarios. The UHI effect was assessed using Urban Weather Generator, while energy simulations were performed with CitySim. The urban archetype approach enables both fine spatial resolution and extensive spatial coverage, supporting urban-scale mapping.
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