Summertime urban heat island hysteresis lag complexity

At a time when the world is rapidly urbanising, civil and environmental engineers, urban planners and policy makers around the globe are faced with the complex issues of how to design and construct urban regions to be sustainable. During this time of unprecedented growth, environmental engineers and scientists are faced with the additional complexities of global and regional climate change. This review paper focuses on the nexus of rapid urbanisation and summertime local climate change that can be addressed at the regional level—the built environment. First, it assesses the volumetric and physical characteristics that comprise the urban fabric of a region. Second, the paper presents a review of research efforts to date to quantify how surface material applications and microclimate are subject to the laws of thermodynamics, which can be altered in terms of engineered alternatives. This includes a review of surface mitigation research as presented in the context of sustainability.