CEEM Seminar Series - Thursday, April 14

Title: "The Enemy You Know is Better Than the One You Do Not Know: Towards a Better Understanding of Urban Heat Island by Means of New Monitoring and Mitigation Actions for the Built Environment"

Speaker: Prof. Anna Laura Pisello, University of Perugia, Italy

Location: 644 Mudd or join via Zoom (Click here to register and receive the Zoom link.)

Host: Prof. Marco Giometto

Abstract:

Urban heat island is the best known climate change related phenomenon, directly imputable to anthropogenic actions. Such actions are basically located within packed urban contexts which are typically characterized by massive solar trapping configurations, low reflectivity materials and skins, and impervious surfaces, all of them exacerbating local overheating and compromising citizens’ health. Research in the last 50 years has been focused in the UHI analysis, and in developing specific mitigation actions within the built environment over envelopes, squares and even street finishing layers. The talk will discuss the progress of new human-centered monitoring techniques for a more granular and reliable knowledge of urban microclimate heat, and a better tailored mitigation plan. The key mitigation actions will be then assessed with a special attention to the progress in developing cool materials and adaptive solutions, while providing a roadmap towards the most promising and disruptive strategies currently under investigation.