Urban Heat Islands in Delhi: Causes, Distribution and Mitigation

Global warming as an international issue and suburban background of author make him interested in Urban Heat Islands (UHI) where personal experiences are the bases for this book. In this book, all the aspects of UHIs has been discussed and tried to reach a solution for combating it using available technology and resources. The high population growth rate leads to need of housing and consequently land use/land cover change in proximity of city. The urbanization process is taking place in and around city and with great pace along the transport corridors, in the proximity of which land use/land cover change accelerated. Anthropogenic activities such as transportation, high energy use, increase in air pollution which is a result of higher temperature produced by these activities which produces UHIs. Urban Heat Island produces discomfort zone in summers, which affect the workforce (Human efficiency to work) negatively. UHI raises pollution level which may affect biodiversity negatively as extinction of plants and animals. It is difficult to check its expansion because there are so many factors responsible, but even then it can be reduced to some extent by applying appropriate measures.