[month] [year]

International Conference on Countermeasures to Urban Heat Islands (IC2UHI)

IIIT Hyderabad hosted the 5th International Conference on Countermeasures to Urban Heat Islands (IC2UHI) from 2-4 December 2019. The conference was held first time in India. Earlier conferences were held in Tokyo, Berkeley (California), Venice, and Singapore.

It has long been recognised that the excessive heat and smog in many cities in the summer, the “Urban Heat Island,” is partly due to the choices of building materials, lack of vegetation, and urban design. The conference is devoted to the science, engineering and public policies to help relieve excess heat and air pollution of summers in cities. IC2UHI is highly relevant to scientists, engineers, builders, architects, government officials, students and homeowners.

The conference was inaugurated by Mr. Arvind Kumar IAS, Principal Secretary, Municipal Administration & Urban Development (MA&UD). Speaking at the conference, Mr. Kumar said, “Hyderabad currently has about 120 million sqft for businesses. In the next 2 – 5 years, if we add up all the proposals we’ve received, it would increase to 140 million sqft by 2025. So, we can imagine how the urban heat island (UHI) is going to double in a short span of time. He further added that this conference is highly relevant in discussing the countermeasures to UHIs.

 

Mr. Kumar shared some of the Telangana government’s countermeasures for reducing urban heat islands, such as the Ministerial Act, whereby each of the State’s 33 districts shall have a year-wise green action plan for all urban local bodies (ULB) within the district for the next 5 years. Each ULB should have a nursery, and 10 % of the budget has been earmarked for a green budget as the first budget. Also, town planning has been taking necessary action to fix traffic and infrastructure and the State is encouraging the setting up and development of integrated townships. He also stressed on the importance of every individual to be personally invested in countering urban heat islands and doing their bit for the environment.

Some of the highlights of the conference were:

  • Around 100 technical paper presentations including case studies on Urban Heat Island
  • Three keynote talks by Prof. David Sailor (Arizona State University), Dr. Ronnen Levinson (LBNL, USA) and Mr. Tanmay Tathagat (Environmental Design Solutions, India)
  • Plenary talk by Prof. Hashem Akbari, Concordia University, Canada

                                                                                                                               

  

 

 

                                                                                                                                           

 

 

 

 

 

 

An Open Session was also conducted on 4 December and included:

  • An International case study from Los Angeles on Cool Pavements
  • Session on UHI mitigation initiatives in India
  • Panel discussion on UHI Implementation challenges in India

Speaking about the conference, Prof Vishal Garg, Head of Centre of IT in Building Sciences, IIITH and organising chair of the conference said, “An urban heat island is an urban area that is significantly warmer than its surrounding rural areas due to human activities. The temperature difference is usually larger at night than during the day and is most apparent when winds are weak. This UHI leads to an increase in energy consumption, elevated emissions of air pollutants and adversely impacts human health and comfort, especially of urban poor.

 

 

 

In Indian cities, we are witnessing an increase in temperature due to UHI leading to increased number of heatwaves. In this conference, the current research on countermeasures to urban heat island have been presented and discussed. Through the open session on the last day of the conference, international case studies were presented. Further, this was a good opportunity to showcase and discuss the initiatives in India, such as the Telangana Government’s, “Making Telangana a cool state – a state-wide cool roof program” with the international experts. This program aims to achieve 100 sq. Km cool roof area in Hyderabad by 2030.

 More details on IC2UHI at http://ic2uhi2019.heatislandcountermeasures.org/