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Abstract Despite its notable role in the exacerbation of urban climate, Urban Heat Island (UHI) was poorly addressed, communicated and integrated into local urban policies of many developing countries. Such scenario often queried the level of UHI understanding amongst the key players who were involved in urban policy formulation. Hence, a qualitative study using Focus Group Discussions (FGD) was designed to investigate the awareness and knowledge level of stakeholders such as policy makers and practitioners in Greater Kuala Lumpur (GKL), an expanding socio-economic hub of a developing tropical country. The findings demonstrated a variable lack of awareness and knowledge about the concept of UHI, its status in GKL as well as organizational engagement in adaptation and mitigation initiatives among the study participants. Essentially, policy makers illustrated a facile awareness and knowledge towards UHI issues whereas practitioners displayed a more robust portfolio of factual understanding regarding the corresponding issues. In line with National Urbanization Policy's (NUP) aspiration to optimize urban developments that provide high quality of life, this study sheds some light on the exigency for UHI awareness creation and capacity building among the policy makers. This study also provides impactful prepositions for the articulation of necessary actions towards evidence-based urban policy formulation in future. Highlights • UHI is poorly addressed, communicated and integrated into local urban policies. • Results demonstrated a variable lack of awareness and knowledge towards UHI amongst the stakeholders. • Impactful insights and recommendations for awareness creation and evidence-based urban policy formulation are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recognizing and mainstreaming pertinent walkability elements into the university campus planning is crucial to materialise green mandates of the campus, while enhancing social and economic sustainability. In one of such attempts, this transverse study investigated the walking motivations, built environment factors associated with campus walkability and the relative importance of the studied built environment factors in reference to the sociodemographic attributes from the viewpoint of the campus community in a tropical university campus in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. An online survey using a structured questionnaire was conducted between May and September 2019. The built environment factors associated with campus walkability were expressed and ranked as adjusted scores (AS). Meanwhile, multivariable logistic regression was deployed to examine the relative importance of the studied built environment factors in reference to the sociodemographic attributes of the campus community. Among 504 total responses acquired, proximity between complementary land uses (90.7%) was reported as the main motivation for walking. On the other hand, street connectivity and accessibility (AS: 97.62%) was described as the most opted built environment factor, followed by land use (AS: 96.76%), pedestrian infrastructure (AS: 94.25%), walking experience (AS: 87.07%), traffic safety (AS: 85.28%) and campus neighbourhood (AS: 59.62%), respectively. Among the sociodemographic attributes, no regular monthly income (OR = 3.162; 95% CI = 1.165–8.379; p < 0.05) and willingness to walk more than 60 min inside the campus per day (OR = 0.418; 95% CI = 0.243–0.720; p < 0.05) were significantly associated with the expression of higher importance towards the reported built environment factors in the multivariate analysis. In brief, the findings of this study were envisaged to elicit valuable empirical evidence for informed interventions and strengthening campus sustainable mobility policies. Unlabelled Image • Proximity between complementary land uses reported as the main walking motivation. • Street connectivity and accessibility was described as the most opted walkability factor. • Income levels and willingness to walk correlated with the reported built environment factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban heat islands (UHIs) are negatively impacting the quality of the urban environment and outdoor thermal comfort (OTC) levels, which have raised concerns regarding their impact on urban health and well-being. Understanding of OTC level is crucial, particularly in tropical cities with year-round high temperatures and humidity. A study was conducted in Kuala Lumpur (KL), Malaysia, to determine the OTC level in a selected urban area through microclimate measurements and questionnaire surveys with 1157 respondents. Over half of the urban dwellers reported thermal discomfort, with a high perceived OTC level, indicating strong thermal adaptive behaviours among the urban dwellers despite the physiological stress. Confounding factors such as urban morphology, land cover and human activity patterns also influence the OTC level in the tropical city. The findings emphasize the need for interventions to improve the urban environment and promote better outdoor thermal comfort for city dwellers through measures such as green infrastructure, UHI mitigation and increasing public awareness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]