Iain D. Stewart

TL;DR: The Local Climate Zone (LCZ) classification system as discussed by the authors was developed to address the inadequacies of urban-rural description, and consists of 17 zone types at the local scale (102 to 104 m).

TL;DR: In this article, a systematic review and scientific critique of urban heat island literature from the period 1950 to 2007 is presented, concluding that a large proportion of observational heat island studies are compromised by poor scientific practice.

TL;DR: The WUDAPT protocol developed here provides an easy to understand workflow; uses freely available data and software; and can be applied by someone without specialist knowledge in spatial analysis or urban climate science.

TL;DR: In this paper, the conceptual division of local climate zones (LCZs) with temperature observations and simulation results from surface-atmosphere models is evaluated for heat island studies, and it is shown that thermal contrasts exist among all LCZ classes, and such contrasts are governed largely by building height and spacing, pervious surface fraction, tree density, and soil wetness.

TL;DR: The quantification of energy and material flows for the world’s 27 megacities with populations greater than 10 million people as of 2010 is a major undertaking, not previously achieved and largely consistent with scaling laws established in the emerging science of cities.