The Urban Heat Island phenomenon modelling and analysis as an adaptation of Maghreb cities to climate change

¹ Laboratory of Civil Engineering, Ecole Mohammadia d’Ingénieurs, Université Mohammed 5, Rabat, Morocco
² Laboratory Energy, Sustainability and Ambiances, Ecole Nationale d’Architecture, Rabat, Morocco
³ Lab'Urba, Université Paris-Est-Marne-la-Vallée, Champs-sur-Marne, France

Abstract

The modeling of the urban microclimate, in particular the phenomenon of the Urban Heat Island (UHI), is becoming increasingly essential for city planning and urban design. The phenomenon analysis is henceforth possible thanks to the increase in computational power, the link between simulation tools and urban databases, which allow to represent explicitly the characteristics of the urban microclimate and to better understand its effects, through the analysis and evaluation of the different impacts of the urban climatic or anthropogenic contributors (urban morphology, land use, building sites, albedo, …). However, the choice of the scaleof the study depends on a balance between the precision of the modeling, the capacities of calculation and the availability and reliability of the data.The UHI phenomenon has been the subject of several research studies in the European countries since the 2000s. Thispaper focuses mainly on the description of the phenomenon, the different methodsused to evaluate and modeled its impacts, using some approaches for mitigating these ones.The contribution aims to highlight the phenomenon of the UHI based on a bibliographic study of the latest research on this topic in Maghreb cities.The state of art focuses on the progress made during the last 15 years taking into account the UHI in the different strategies for adapting cities to climate change and for improving their resilience.