The Built Environment Induced Urban Heat Island Effect in Rapidly Urbanizing Arid Regions – A Sustainable Urban Engineering Complexity

As recently as 1950, 30% of the world’s population lived in urban areas. By the year 2030, 60% of the world’s population will live in cities, according to the United Nations (2001) World Population Prospects Revision Report. Urbanization is quickly transitioning communities from the natural rural vegetation to man-made urban engineered infrastructure. The anthropogenic-induced change has manifested itself in microscale and mesoscale increases in temperatures in comparison to adjacent rural regions which is known as the urban heat island (UHI) effect and results in potentially adverse consequences for local and global communities. One of the great challenges facing our current generation of scientists and engineers is how to support the growth of the new and existing arid urban centers in a sustainable manner. This is even more pronounced in arid regions, which will sustain the greatest rate of urbanization. This paper is focused on understanding the interdependency of the infrastructure used to support the growth of urban regions and their environmental, social and economic consequences with an emphasis on the rapidly urbanizing arid region of Phoenix, Arizona.

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