PRELIMINARY STUDY ON METHODS FOR IDENTIFYING URBAN HEAT ISLANDS – CASE STUDY – THE SOUTHERN AREA OF ROMANIA

Gabriel MURARIU, Romana DRASOVEAN, Cătălin FETECAU, Corneliu DORFOTEI, Sorin FRASINA

Abstract


The urban heat island is the phenomenon by which cities become considerably warmer due to the absorption and retention of heat by built surfaces. The study of urban heat islands is a current topic in Romania as well. In this paper, we present a methodology for detecting climate change using extreme values of air temperature and atmospheric precipitation. Modeling urban heat islands (UHI) using GIS tools and climate software involves the integration of spatial and atmospheric data to analyze the temperature distribution and the impact of urban factors on the microclimate.

In the case of this paper, we conducted a data collection covering the period 2017 -2025, regarding a series of atmospheric parameters from 58 locations related to air quality monitoring stations in 8 geographical areas of Romania. Due to the limitations of the size of the presented study, the limitation was made to the south-eastern area of Romania – which includes a set of 9 monitoring stations – 4 stations in Galaţi County and 4 stations in Brăila County.

The algorithm used includes: multivariate analysis - based on the PCA method, clustering - based on methods such as k-means to group the stations according to thermal behavior and comparative graphs between stations, thermal and vector maps (for wind), correlation and regression diagrams, etc. Using spatial interpolation procedures based on methods such as IDW or Kriging to create thermal maps, we managed to obtain a zonal classification: divide the city into zones (central, peripheral, green, etc.) and compare the essential parameters


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References


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