Neighbourhood scale Urban Heat Island modelling in the West Midlands, UK Using ADMS-Urban Temperature and Humidity model

Urban heat island (UHI) effects can result in numerous negative impacts on the health and well-being of urban residents. Modelling UHI intensity is essential for characterising its spatiotemporal dynamics, assessing urban heat exposure risks, and projecting future changes under urbanisation and climate change. This study adopts the ADMS-Urban Temperature and Humidity model to simulate the interannual variation and spatial distribution of UHI intensity in the West Midlands, UK. This model has been validated in a previous, smaller-scale study conducted in Birmingham city. The model inputs include the spatial distributions of three thermal attribute parameters (i.e. thermal admittance, surface resistance to evaporation, and albedo) as derived from land-cover datasets and rasterised to a 100 m resolution, upwind meteorological data, urban canopy, terrain, and anthropogenic heat. The model outputs include the long-term variation of temperature and its perturbations at selected locations for receptor runs and high-resolution short-term contour maps for the contour runs. The preliminary output of this study will be a baseline in the year 2023. In this baseline, we output the UHI intensity of the West Midlands, including temporal variation on receptors and instantaneous spatial distributions. This baseline could be the basis for modelling scenarios in the future. Based on changes in land cover caused by urbanisation, in the next step, we could simulate the changes in UHI intensity relative to the baseline due to land-cover change, such as the expansion of green spaces, and the replacement of natural surfaces in rural areas by urban built-up areas. Future scenarios could also include patterns of temperature and perturbation changes under new upwind meteorological conditions induced by climate change, as well as changes in UHI driven by increased anthropogenic heat emissions. These results can be used to test the effectiveness of strategies for mitigating the UHI through urban and green space planning, thus providing data support for the planning of climate-resilient cities.