Assessing the adaptive capacity of urban form to climate stress: a case study on an urban heat island

Urban land planning shapes the urban form and is considered to be one of themany tools important for climate adaptation. Yet there is little knowledge about the adaptive capacity of urban forms to climate stress, or of an appropriate assessmentmethod. Through a case study on the urban heat island (UHI) in XiamenCity, China, we propose a novel approach that integrates several aspects to assess the adaptive capacity of urban form to climate stress. These aspects include the calculation of urban form, the determination of climate stress and land usemodeling. Our results demonstrate that this approach is applicable for assessing the adaptive capacity of urban form in the historical, current and future multitime scales. Both urban planning aspects (e.g. population density, land usemix, road density and percentage of green open space) and landscape features (e.g. shape complexity, contiguity and compactness) are found to be key urban formdrivers affectingUHI. The adaptive capacity of the urban form toUHI inXiamenCity has been declining dramatically, and is expected to continue to decline in the future as long as adaptation continues to not be integrated in urban land use planning. Our analysis suggests that urbanmanagers need to review the past developmentmodel of land use and rethink the current approach to urban planning:most urgent is the need to take full account of adaptation in future land use planning and implementation, so as to enhance climate resilience.