Browsing by Author "Thomas, Felipe"

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    Heat vulnerability in a hyper-arid coastal conurbation: downscaled LST and socio-spatial analysis
    (2025) Sarricolea, Pablo; Baltazar, Alexis; Meseguer Ruiz, Oliver; Smith, Pamela; Picone, Natasha; Serrano Notivoli, Roberto; Vidal Paez, Paulina; Fuentealba, Magdalena; Thomas, Felipe
    Heat vulnerability is a critical issue for cities under climate change, especially in socially precarious contexts and extreme climates such as deserts. The Iquique–Alto Hospicio conurbation in northern Chile represents a distinctive case study due to its marked altitudinal contrasts and rapid urban expansion. This research focuses on assessing the Surface Urban Heat Island (SUHI) at its peak expression, during summer nighttime conditions, in order to spatialize heat vulnerability. A multi-scalar workflow was applied, beginning with long-term multitemporal analysis of land surface temperature at moderate resolution (2002–2023) and extending to high-resolution downscaling for five recent years (2019–2023) using bilinear resampling combined with robust regression techniques. A heat vulnerability index was then developed through principal component analysis (four components, ∼74% variance explained), complemented by a spatial cluster analysis based on Anselin’s Local Moran’s I, which delineated statistically significant hot-spots in Iquique’s historic core and in recently formalized social-housing districts on the Alto Hospicio plateau, as well as cold-spots along the affluent coastal seafront. The results confirm the presence of a strong nocturnal summer SUHI, largely coinciding with the most densely populated areas characterized by low-rise housing and limited green space. The local climate zone Compact low-rise and lightweight built forms were identified as the most vulnerable to heat. The study concludes that effective strategies should promote less dense building typologies while incorporating urban infrastructures that act as climate refuges across the conurbation. More broadly, the approach offers a transferable template for climate-resilient planning in data-scarce, arid coastal cities worldwide.
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    Urban climate simulation model to support climate-sensitive planning decision making at local scale
    (2024) Smith, Pamela; Blanco, Estela; Sarricolea, Pablo; Peralta, Orlando; Thomas, Felipe
    Urban planning, through design and land use allocation, affects urban climate dynamics and patterns at different atmospheric layers and spatial scales. Climate sensitive planning and design draws attention to the consideration of climate parameters for decision making. Seeking to contribute to the above, this research set out to identify the effect of urban design features (e.g., vegetation cover and construction density) on air temperature behavior. We conducted a case study, selected the Renca municipality located north-west Santiago, Chile, which represents a Mediterranean urban area affected by an intense daytime and nighttime urban heat island (UHI). We developed simple linear regression models to estimate air temperature per block in four different present and future scenarios: summer and winter and for day (16:00) and night (23:00). The urban-environmental variables were evaluated with the air temperature data series, measured in 21 points in the commune which were representative of urban and natural local climatic zones (LCZ). The results were evaluated and validated. We observed that variables such as vegetation, surface temperature or relative humidity are important explanatory factors for air temperature at the block scale in Renca across all four models. Models represent a tool that allows the evaluation of different design and urban planning alternatives at the scale of a city block, providing useful information for climate-sensitive decision-making.