Tool adjustments to support climate adaptation in urban planning for southern cities: The case of Greater Tunis, Tunisia

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 (