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Urban microclimate studies could help manage heatwave crises and improve climate friendly urban planning. This paper presents adjustments to tools and approaches, in particular the Urban Climate Maps framework, typically produced in industrialized countries for contexts relevant to developing countries, where accurate urban data are often not available. In this study, relevant urban, architectural and land use data were collected and constructed to enable numerical simulations of a heat wave episode in the Greater Metropolitan area of Tunis. The simulation results indicate that the diurnal heat stress reached very high values corresponding to an extreme heat stress level, according to the Urban Thermal Climate Index (UTCI) scale, by 9 a.m. local time. The highest sea-breeze speeds were over the sea (∼8 m s−1). However, the effect of the sea breeze was low over densely urbanized areas (

This paper presents the development of the methodology used to create an Urban Climatic Analytical Map (UC-AnMap) of Salvador, Brazil, based on its Land Use Patterns Map (MPO). Located in the Northeast Region of Brazil, Salvador is currently the fourth most populous city in the country, with nearly three million people. First, the MPO was used as a layer; then, an updated version of the MPO was used as a fundamental layer to derive thematic maps based on the distinct urban morphologies found in the city. MPOs are suggested here as a starting methodological procedure, a facilitative tool for the construction of an Urban Climatic Map. MPOs allow the variety of urban land use patterns to be captured and are based on universally available information, such as Google Earth images and tools, regardless of the existence of sophisticated and costly databases, which are not usually accessible in cities in developing countries. MPOs involve identifying and delimiting visually homogeneous land use areas in polygons at an adequate scale of 1:10,000. Similar areas are grouped under the same patterns, regardless of their urban functions, creating a classification system that characterizes different existing patterns by their distinct urban attributes. Salvador’s social and economic inequalities have produced ongoing unequal urban patterns, and institutional and structural factors have contributed to the absence of up-to-date digital urban databases. Given the local context, the Salvador UC-AnMap could not have been made without developing an MPO.

This paper focuses on the management of scarce water resources in two metropolises of the arid West of the United States facing intensifying droughts and increased water stress. Located in the Sonoran Desert and built on the model of the oasis city, Phoenix and Tucson are great examples of the socio-ecological challenges linked to extreme water scarcity. This study considers these two cities as laboratories for urban adaptation to climate change and explores competing modalities of adaptation to water scarcity. Since the system of large hydraulic infrastructures underpinning urban growth is increasingly called into question, we observe and analyze the power relations between stakeholders involved in water resource management. Using an urban political ecology framework, this contribution shows that adaptation strategies are implemented by dominant actors in order to maintain the growth trajectory of particularly attractive cities. Yet, it also highlights the role that citizen empowerment plays in the emergence of potential environmental alternatives. The results show that environmental alternatives play an important role in regulating resource control strategies and in calling for socio-environmental transformations in the urban metabolism.

After its massive introduction in the seventies in France Crassostrea gigas has become the main production of French oyster farming. From the early 1990’s, C. gigas has started to spread to many sites of Brittany and Normandy and, thanks to climate warming, its population has dramatically increased leading to a general invasion and to deep changes in ecosystems and biodiversity. A research program called PROGIG has been set up to evaluate the dynamic of this proliferation on French Channel and Atlantic coasts, and to identify its interactions with marine ecosystems and human activities. This paper presents the GIS implemented to integrate the data collected during field surveys of oyster populations, and the results of a spatial analysis of its potential interactions with human activities on coastal zone.