Assessment and adaption of urban cultural heritage assets as touristic destination towards the impact of UHI : case study: City of Edinburgh

Abstract

Preserving cultural heritage sites has always faced many challenges in a rapidly growing and changing world, mainly in urban areas [Dastgerdi et al., 2019]. Overall, the urban environment faces imminent risks due to climate change, which are amplified due to extensive anthropogenic activities, development, and land-use changes [IPCC, 2014a]. In development strategies, urban planners consider not only the differences in UHI magnitude between urban and rural but also the different levels within the city [Wicki and Parlow, 2017]. Historic towns retain unique urban forms, which are hard to analyse compared to modern and contemporary development and despite that there is a lack of studies in this aspect.

A local climate zone (LCZ) can display the scale of UHI impact in various parts of the city depending on the build-up types, and these LCZ classes depend on morphological parameters [Steward and Oke, 2012]. This scheme works well in cases of homogenous development types in the U.S but is less effective in the case of European cities, whose old core consists of organic development patterns with narrow streets and irregular urban forms. Therefore, in the case of Edinburgh, the morphological parameters were calculated in the high-resolution grid (15m) from different sources. Land use / Land cover was introduced as a parameter needed to classify the LCZ classes. The combination between LULC and morphological parameters was not completed fully as the thresholds of different LCZ classes overlap, so the mean values were used. LULC representing the characteristics of cultural heritage assets of Edinburgh are recommended for future combination.

UHI can affect different sectors in a city due to the direct relation to outdoor thermal comfort. Tourism is a crucial sector for income in Edinburgh, with the world's fourth-highest tourist-to-local ratio in 2019. The thermal comfort at New Town, an important World Heritage tourist destination, is overcoming improvements by the City of Edinburgh, which will affect the tourist’s experience. This study measures the implications that new improvements, such as materials with a high albedo, can bring to thermal comfort. In case of a heat wave, the new implementations will lower the air temperature, but apart from new shaded areas, the thermal comfort (PET) can worsen compared to the actual state. The improvement of thermal comfort and adaptation of climate-sensitive solutions in cases of World Heritage properties are burdened by guidelines to preserve the integrity and the authenticity of the cultural asset.