Today, more than half of the world's population are living in cities that are now contributing 80% of global greenhouse gas emissions. They cover less than 3% of the earth's surface. And urbanisation continues apace.

This paper describes the development of a 3D model of the non-domestic building stock of England and Wales. The model’s purpose is to assess energy use in the stock, and study conservation options. Previous stock models have used data on floor area by activities, and have not represented building geometry. The present model by contrast combines digital maps and property taxation data to build a 3D representation in which separate premises are located within buildings, with floor areas on each level. Subactivities per floor are also represented in 2D. A case study of the London Borough of Camden is presented.

The geometrical forms of buildings have important effects on their use of energy. These relationships are explored at the scale of the entire non-domestic building stock of London. A three-dimensional digital model of the city is used to make a series of geometrical measures: building volume, exposed surface area (walls plus roof) and plan depth. These are compared with figures for the consumption of gas and electricity published by the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC). The comparisons are made at different levels of spatial aggregation, from boroughs to census districts. Strong correlations are demonstrated between exposed surface area and both gas and electricity use. The analysis also provides some evidence of a sharp increase in electricity use in districts with buildings whose depth in plan exceeds 14 m (in which air-conditioning and permanent artificial lighting are typically required). A multiple regression model is used to measure the contribution of these effects to total energy use, as compared with floor area, activities and number of employees. © 2013 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.

Urban areas by nature of their high population density are concentrations of vulnerability to climate change impacts and their emissions are a significant driver of global climate change. We have developed an integrated assessment that simulates the main processes of long term change at the scale of whole cities to support climate sensitive urban design. A series of simulation modules are coupled within a scenario and policy analysis framework. Global and national scenarios of climate and socio-economic change drive the analysis and feed into models of the regional economy and land use change. Spatially explicit simulations of climate, land use and socio-economic change inform analysis of the impacts of climate change and greenhouse gas emissions. The effectiveness of planning, adaptation and mitigation options are tested with stakeholders. This paper presents a case study focusing on landuse change, flooding and drought risks in London. Analysis shows spatial planning has a profound effect on future flood risk. Flooding and drought risk could increase fourfold by 2100 with socio-economic factors responsible for over half of the rise. However, portfolios of water sensitive design measures can contain these potential increases with retrofitting of existing building fundamental to addressing this challenge in London.

The urban heat island (UHI) is a well-known effect of urbanisation and is particularly important in world megacities. Overheating in such cities is expected to be exacerbated in the future as a result of further urban growth and climate change. Demonstrating and quantifying the impact of individual design interventions on the UHI is currently difficult using available software tools. The tools developed in the LUCID (‘The Development of a Local Urban Climate Model and its Application to the Intelligent Design of Cities’) research project will enable the related impacts to be better understood, quantified and addressed. This article summarises the relevant literature and reports on the ongoing work of the project. Practical applications: There is a complex relationship between built form, urban processes, local temperature, comfort, energy use and health. The UHI effect is significant and there is a growing recognition of this issue. Developers and planners are seeking advice on design decisions at a variety of scales based on scientifically robust, quantitative methods. The LUCID project has thus developed a series of tools that (1) quantify the effect of urbanisation processes on local environmental conditions, and (2) quantify the impact of such conditions on comfort, energy use and health. The use of such tools is vital, both to inform policy but also to be able to demonstrate compliance with it.

We present simulations of London's meteorology using the Met Office Unified Model with a new, sophisticated surface energy‐balance scheme to represent the urban surfaces, called MORUSES. Simulations are performed with the urban surfaces represented and with the urban surfaces replaced with grass in order to calculate the urban increment on the local meteorology. The local urban effects were moderated to some extent by the passage of an onshore flow that propagated up the Thames estuary and across the city, cooling London slightly in the afternoon. Validations of screen‐level temperature show encouraging agreement to within 1–2 K, when the urban increment is up to 5 K. The model results are then used to examine factors shaping the spatial and temporal structure of London's atmospheric boundary layer. The simulations reconcile the differences in the temporal evolution of the urban heat island (UHI) shown in various studies and demonstrate that the variation of UHI with time depends strongly on the urban fetch. The UHI at a location downwind of the city centre shows a decrease in UHI during the night, while the UHI at the city centre stays constant. Finally, the UHI at a location upwind of the city centre increases continuously. The magnitude of the UHI by the time of the evening transition increases with urban fetch. The urban increments are largest at night, when the boundary layer is shallow. The boundary layer experiences continued warming after sunset, as the heat from the urban fabric is released, and a weakly convective boundary layer develops across the city. The urban land‐use fraction is the dominant control on the spatial structure in the sensible heat flux and the resulting urban increment, although even the weak advection present in this case study is sufficient to advect the peak temperature increments downwind of the most built‐up areas. Copyright © 2011 Royal Meteorological Society and British Crown Copyright, the Met Office

This study addresses the anthropogenic heat emissions from buildings in London, i.e. the total energy delivered to buildings, all of which will ultimately end up as heat energy. The study was undertaken in an attempt to understand the significance of these emissions with regards to the impact on the local climate in London. In order to place the emission of this anthropogenic heat in context, it was thus compared against the net short wave solar radiation captured within the urban environment. This study provides a preliminary analysis of the spatial and temporal anthropogenic heat emissions from buildings across London as part of the urban climate modelling element of the LUCID (‘The Development of a Local Urban Climate Model and its Application to the Intelligent Design of cities’) project. Four urban environment models, representative of the range of urban density found in central London, were developed for the comparison of the anthropogenic heat emissions and the net shortwave solar radiation. It was found that the annual average anthropogenic heat emission from the built environment across London was approximately 9W/m2 (ground area). However, this average value conceals a significant spatial and temporal range. In those urban areas with deep canyons and high densities, the anthropogenic heat constitutes a significant portion of the total energy input. A comparison indicates that the total heat emission from buildings during a winter day ranges between 3 and 25 times greater than the incident solar radiation, and during a summer day between 0.04 and 0.4 times, depending on built form density.

London's Environment, pp. 221-240 (2005) No AccessCommunity Participation in Urban Regeneration Using Internet TechnologiesAndy Hudson-Smith, Steve Evans, Michael Batty, and Susan BattyAndy Hudson-SmithCentre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA), University College London, 1-19 Torrington Pl., London, WC1E 6BT, United Kingdom, Steve EvansCentre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA), University College London, 1-19 Torrington Pl., London, WC1E 6BT, United Kingdom, Michael BattyCentre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA), University College London, 1-19 Torrington Pl., London, WC1E 6BT, United Kingdom, and Susan BattyBartlett School of Planning, University College London, 22 Gordon Street, London, WC1H OQB, United Kingdomhttps://doi.org/10.1142/9781860947254_0015Cited by:1 PreviousNext AboutSectionsPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack CitationsRecommend to Library ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmail Abstract: The following sections are included: INTRODUCTION THE NEW MEDIA FOR PARTICIPATION HACKNEY AND WOODBERRY DOWN: DEPRIVATION AND REGENERATION DEVELOPMENT OF THE WEB RESOURCES THE STRUCTURE OF ONLINE PARTICIPATION IN WOODBERRY DOWN CONCLUSIONS: WHAT NEXT? REFERENCES FiguresReferencesRelatedDetailsCited By 1Integrated policies for environmental resilience and sustainabilityJ. Hunt1 Sep 2009 | Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers - Engineering Sustainability, Vol. 162, No. 3 London's EnvironmentMetrics History PDF download

We are on the edge of a revolution in the way we visualize and query digital data about our environment. To date, computer displays of our environment in the third dimension have been limited to computer-aided design (CAD) packages and the query of related data limited to geographical information systems (GIS) packages in two dimensions. The current innovation wave across the spatial data information field is based on the development and dissemination of three-dimensional GIS (3-D GIS) which allows data to be visualized and queried on an x, y and z axis plane. A number of the key players in information visualization allow conventional two-dimensional data to be viewed and exported in a three-dimensional format, currently using the standard Virtual Reality Modeling Language 2.0 (VRML 2.0). However such methods of visualization and data query are limited in their practicality. The move towards 3-D GIS in standard packages has been rather hit and miss, with the third dimension often only used as a substitute for basic CAD-like visualization. We argue here that 3-D GIS will only become a reality when it is directly linked with CAD models; and that the Internet is the most appropriate medium through which this is most likely to occur. We illustrate these arguments in an overview of research into the virtual city in general and our own development of ‘Virtual London’ in particular. Further, we explore the rise of the global virtual city, a network of virtual cities that provide an insight into the future of digital space.

The internet and world wide web are generating radical changes in the way we are able tocommunicate. Our ability to engage communities and individuals in designing theirenvironment is also beginning to change as new digital media provide ways in whichindividuals and groups can interact with planners and politicians in exploring their future.This paper tells the story of how the residents of one of the most disadvantagedcommunities in Britain ? the Woodberry Down Estate in the London borough ofHackney ? have begun to use an online system which delivers everything from routineservices about their housing to ideas about options for their future. Woodberry Down isone of the biggest regeneration projects in Western Europe. It will take at least 10 years,probably much longer, to complete, at a cost of over £150 million. Online participation isone of the many ways in which this community is being engaged but as we will show, itis beginning to act as a catalyst. The kinds of networks which are evolving aroundsystems like these will change the nature of participation itself, the ways we need to thinkabout it, and the ways we need to respond. Before the experiment is described, we set thecontext by describing the wide range of digital media for communicating plans andplanning which suggests a new typology for web participation consistent with this fastemerging network culture.

The internet and world wide web are generating radical changes in the way we are able to communicate. Our ability to engage communities and individuals in designing their environment is also beginning to change as new digital media provide ways in which individuals and groups can interact with planners and politicians in exploring their future. This paper tells the story of how the residents of one of the most disadvantaged communities in Britain – the Woodberry Down Estate in the London borough of Hackney – have begun to use an online system which delivers everything from routine services about their housing to ideas about options for their future. Woodberry Down is one of the biggest regeneration projects in Western Europe. It will take at least 10 years, probably much longer, to complete, at a cost of over £150 million. Online participation is one of the many ways in which this community is being engaged but as we will show, it is beginning to act as a catalyst. The kinds of networks which are evolving around systems like these will change the nature of participation itself, the ways we need to think about it, and the ways we need to respond. Before the experiment is described, we set the context by describing the wide range of digital media for communicating plans and planning which suggests a new typology for web participation consistent with this fast emerging network culture.