Papers by Student Trio Most Cited in Urban Climate
The papers by CUHK PhD students will benefit the planning of future healthy cities, public health policies and climate change adaptions.
Urban Climate, a leading international academic journal, recently recognised journal papers by three PhD students from the School of Architecture at CUHK as among ‘the most cited articles since 2017’. Not only was this a well-deserved honour for the three young scientists, it also demonstrated that urban climate studies conducted by Hong Kong researchers have great reference value for the global academic community.
The three students — Yingsheng Zheng (graduated in 2019) and Ran Wang and Meng Cai (current students) — analysed open source satellite remote sensing images and classified land use and building forms to develop a detailed urban climatic map that is globally applicable.
Hong Kong and the Yangtze River Delta region were selected as case studies for the map, as these areas are complex with high-density urban morphology that can be referenced by urban climatic researchers worldwide. The research findings contained in the three articles help researchers, architects and urban planners acquire accurate urban morphological data more efficiently and give them a better understanding of the relationships between climate and the urban environment. Consequently, the papers will benefit the planning of future healthy cities, public health policies and climate change adaptions.
Urban Data Hold Key to Climate Change
One of the main reasons the papers have been so widely cited is the important role of cities in addressing climate change, especially within the context of urban population expansion. According to the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations, this trend is expected to result in 68% of the world’s population living in cities by 2050. Until recently, however, challenges associated with environmental data acquisition and a lack of standardisation have hindered research progress and the actions needed for addressing climate change.
Before publishing their respective papers, Yingsheng Zheng, Ran Wang and Meng Cai had been conducting interdisciplinary research with CUHK’s School of Architecture, Institute of Environment, Energy and Sustainability and the Institute of Future Cities. Among the consultancy projects they have carried out were studies on urban climate and environment commissioned by the Planning Department and Architectural Services Department of the Hong Kong Government as well as municipal governments in mainland China. They have also been invited by the World Meteorological Organization and the World Health Organization to participate in the preparation of guidelines on urban climate applications, heat waves and hot weather-related health issues.
‘Most Cited Articles’ in Urban Climate :
1. ‘GIS-based mapping of Local Climate Zone in the high-density city of Hong Kong’, Yingsheng Zheng
2. ‘Investigating the relationship between local climate zone and land surface temperature using an improved WUDAPT methodology – A case study of Yangtze River Delta, China’, Meng Cai
3. ‘Mapping the local climate zones of urban areas by GIS-based and WUDAPT methods: A case study of Hong Kong’, Ran Wang
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