Making Urban Environmental Climate Maps for Supporting Urban Planning in Some Japanese Cities

摘要

Urban planning with local climates is becoming important in some Japanese cities because urban thermal environments are becoming severe. However, stakeholders such as local government officials, planners, and residents cannot consider urban climate in their planning processes because urban climate systems are difficult to understand. Therefore, the authors have been proposed the Urban Environmental Climate Map (UECM) for supporting urban planning. Nevertheless, UECMs are rarely made and used by local governments in Japan now, apparently because UECMs do not fit Japanese planning systems. We defined UECMs as consisting of a Climate Analysis Map (CAM) and a Recommendation Map (RIM). The role of CAM is representing actual climate conditions. That of RM is presenting planning recommendations. Therefore, RM should fit the actual Japanese planning system. In this study, the authors specifically examined the application of UECMs to urban planning-related works in a local government and elucidated how UECMs should be used for various purposes. The authors were informed by local government officials about UECMs' potential use and information that UECMs should give to them. The major findings are that UECMs should present suitable places for measures to mitigate urban heat island effects. Based on these results, authors tried to make UECM (CAM and RM) in some Japanese cities. In this study, authors also discuss about the methods and techniques (GIS and simulations) for making UECM.