Journal of Environmental Technology and Engineering

Interaction between Urbanization and Climatic Factors on Formation of Urban Heat Island as an Environmental Challenge: the Conceptual Framework of Tehran Metropolitan Area, Iran

Parisa Shahmohamadi¹

¹ Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Malaysia

Email: shahmohamady@hotmail.com

A..I. Che-Ani¹, Iraj Etessam², K.N.A. Maulud¹, M.F.I. Mohd-Nor¹

² Faculty of Fine Art, Tehran University, Iran

Tehran has experienced rapid growth of urbanization and industrialization since it became the capital (200 years ago) and this has caused serious environmental problems in the city. In an urban area, one of the great problems is urban heat island (UHI) effect, which is due to many factors such as urbanization and climatic factors, resulting from the production and accumulation of heat in the urban mass. The main characteristics of UHI effect are the raised temperatures in the city centre, leading to excessive energy use for cooling and putting urban population at great morbidity and mortality risks. Therefore, it becomes increasingly important to study that how could various factors form UHI over the city in order to reduce environmental challenges. This paper, therefore, is focused on urbanization and climatic factors to understand the influence way of these factors on formation of UHI. In addition, it is showed this formation is related to the interaction between the urbanization and climatic factors. Thus, the percentage of UHI formation is high when great interaction exists. To achieve this aim, with the case study of city of Tehran, this paper explores literally the conceptual framework of interaction between urbanization and climatic factors on formation of UHI. It is then discussed how these two different kinds of factors can be affected and give implication to the city, and then, focuses on whether actions should be taken for balancing adaptation and mitigation UHI effects in Tehran metropolitan area. It will then conclude by making the recommendations for preventive action in provide quality of life.

Index Terms— Climatic Factors, Environmental Challenge, Urban Heat Island, Urbanization Factors.