More than half of the world population now lives in urban areas. According to UN report in 2008, by 2030, nearly 60% of the humanity will be urban dwellers. The rapid urbanization in the past half a century has not only brought new immigrants into the urban areas, but also has gradually changed the physical urban environment. There has been a worldwide vision to design cities which are sustainable, healthy, comfortable, and even enjoyable. Thus, it is necessary to bridge the gap between urban climatology and town planning and urban design, and to transfer the climatic knowledge into planning languages. Facing the global issue of climate change,it is also necessary to include the changing climatic considerations holistical-ly and strategically in the planning process,and to update city plans. Recently urban climatology and itsapplication studies have gained world-wide public concern from a series of international conferences and published official reports, e. g. , the white paper on "Climate and More Sustainable Cities" published by World Climate Conference-3, United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen in 2009 , training workshop on urban climate by World Meteorological Organization, Climate Change and Cities-First Assessment Report of the Urban Climate Change Research Network in 2011, etc. Among them, the study of urban climatic map (UCMap) has been popular. It is first developed by German in the 1970s. Now over 40 years development, there are about 20 countries having their own UCMap studies and relevant application projects for improving urban climatic condition and providing information reference for the design of human living environment.rnFacing the global issue of climate change,it is also necessary to include the changing climatic considerations holistically and strategically in the planning process,and to update city plans. The historical development of UCMap study is reviewed, introducing the key concepts, methodologies, framework and procedures of developing UCMap. The current application situation in Germany, Japan and Hong Kong of China are selected to conduct case studies for exploring their advantages and existing problems. The key lessons of each case study are also provided. Furthermore, according the current situation of China, the urgent need to carry out such study is also pointed out to deal with the environmental problems caused by the recent fast urbanization and solve the conflict among social need, economic benefits, landscape and ecological environment. Due to the poor quality of meteorological data and the urgency of application, a simplified method is expected to apply for development of middle-mage cities and new rural construction of China. Also, the future trend of UCMap study is discussed, which should develop a quantitive method of defining and validating climatope, make the feasibility of application into urban planning, and adopt the climate change into consideration.%城市环境气候图最初于20世纪70年代由德国气候研究者开发制作,通过近40年的发展,目前在世界范围内已有20个国家开展了相关研究与应用项目,从而为改善城市气候环境与提高人居生活条件提供决策依据.该文首先对城市环境气候图的发展及其制作方法进行了一个总体性的回顾,然后选取德国、日本和中国香港地区的研究案例用以考察目前该领域研究和应用现状与存在问题,进一步详细探讨了未来发展的方向,最后指出了在我国城市化进程中为应对诸多气候环境问题所迫切需要开展的相关研究问题.
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