Urban Hydrometeorology

Cities are reshaping our climate, weather, and water cycles---and creating new risks for the people who live in them. This course takes you from the street-level microclimate to the regional scale, combining the physics of urban meteorology and hydrology with the practical tools used to study and manage it: energy and water balance modelling, big data and crowdsourcing, and urban land use classification. You'll explore how the built environment shapes human thermal comfort and health, what drives urban flooding and drought in cities, and how interventions like vegetation and water-sensitive design (e.g. wadis) can make cities more climate- and water-resilient. Throughout, the course connects this knowledge to the real needs of end users in climate adaptation, water management, urban design, public health, and business, through research projects developed together with these stakeholders.

• Analyse the physical mechanisms behind the urban heat island, and evaluate urban air quality and human thermal comfort, including their response to heatwaves

• Analyse key aspects of the urban water cycle and assess its response to precipitation extremes and droughts

• Evaluate the impact of urban design elements on the urban environment

• Apply novel measurement techniques, including crowdsourcing, to observe the urban hydroclimate, and critically assess their outcomes, strengths, and weaknesses

• Apply state-of-the-art urban hydrometeorological modelling strategies, and critically assess their results, strengths, and weaknesses

• Identify open questions in fundamental and applied urban hydrometeorology research, based on literature and your own research

• Assignment poster (60%) Presentation and defence of poster.
• Written test with open questions (40%)

ZSS06200 Fieldwork Safety MAQ22806 Atmosphere-Vegetation-Soil Interactions

• Provided in Brightspace.