You can watch the presentation here :    https://youtu.be/q80xN4YxyTE?t=32s

The interview can be found here: https://youtu.be/r1k9QeFlRR0?t=18m58s

The URBANFLUXES episode is available in multiple languages on FUTURIS web page. The English version can be found here:

http://www.euronews.com/2018/03/05/heat-produced-in-our-cities-is-affecting-human-mortality

Nektarios Chrysoulakis gave a long interview broadcasted live on a Greek radio station (http://skaikritis.gr/) on 30 Jan 2018. Nektarios discussed with the radio host about the project goals and results, the scientific accomplishments during the last three years of research and the knowledge gained regarding the urban energy budget of the three case studies. The interview focused mostly on the case study of Heraklion, the ground meteorological and micrometeorological instruments installed in the city during URBANFLUXES and the importance of satellite imagery in URBANFLUXES methodology. Nektarios explained the significance of URBANFLUXES infrastructure for Heraklion and the multiple benefits of this project towards efficient planning for urban heat stress mitigation and the bioclimatic regeneration of the city.

You can hear the full interview on Youtube or here:

The app is a responsive learning tool to explore the methods and results of the URBANFLUXES project. Firstly the app provides general information about the problems addressed by URBANFLUXES such as climate change adaptation and mitigation as well as the urban heat island effect. Secondly the app explains the technology and the methodology of the URBANFLUXES project, the satellite data and the Copernicus program, the ground measurements and instruments that have been used, and the methodology to compute the Q_F and the Urban Energy Budget (UEB) components. Thirdly the app shows some results of the project. The user can select maps from London Basel and Heraklion and interact with them to discover more info. Maps of various UEB components will be available as well as LST time series.

You can find it on Google Play here:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.geok.urbanfluxes

‘Cities are getting warmer than the surrounding areas, because of the urban heat island phenomenon. Especially during heat waves cool spots may be hard to find. Because of climate change, this overheating problem will occur more often, in more cities.’ This video explains the Urban Heat problem and how satellite data may help to find solutions.

There will be two Demonstration meetings: one in the morning, aiming at scientists and one in the afternoon aiming at other stakeholders. One could say that in the morning we discuss problems, and in the afternoon we discuss solutions.

Demonstration meetings
Programmes of the  demonstration meetings can be found in the attached information package.

• Methods to obtain anthropogenic heat maps in cities (08.30-14.00)
• How can cities reduce urban heat problems and energy losses? (13.00-17.00)

Registration
It is possible to attend both meetings. Please fill out the registration form and indicate which demo meeting(s) you want to attend, http://fd8.formdesk.com/wageningenuralterra/UFdemomeetings

Please register before 15 November.  Confirmation of attendance will be mailed a week prior to the demonstration meetings.

Venue

Blue Fin Building, meeting room Baskerville & Clarendon, 110 Southwark Street, London, SE1 0SU

Hoping to welcome you on 6 December in London!

Stavros Stagakis and Dimitra Tzelidi discussing the uses of CO2 emissions for URBANFLUXES project with visitors and the director of the Institute of Applied & Computational Mathematics during the Researchers’ Night at FORTH.

Nektarios Spiridakis and Manolis Panagiotakis discussing the general idea and the uses of URBANFLUXES project for the local community of Heraklion with visitors during the Researchers’ Night at FORTH.

A lot of visitors were attracted by the project because of its importance for the local community of Heraklion. The visitors had the chance to interact and talk with UF team about the CO2 emissions in the center of Heraklion, also they could see real-time in situ data from the Eddy covariance station that has been installed in the framework of the URBANFLUXES project. They found the project very interesting and they were curious about the outcomes and the application of the project’s results. All visitors and especially the young students expressed the great interest for the application of monitoring for urban climate with in-situ and satellite measurements. Most of the visitors were impressed by the concept of providing all the data freely online and especially the real-time meteorological measurements. The local authorities have also visited the Researchers’ Night, where they were thoroughly informed about the URBANFLUXES project and the importance for Heraklion being one of the case studies.

The FORTH team talking with visitors during the Researchers’ Night.

This conference explores the latest advances in research and practice addressing climate change in cities, including issues of infrastructure, planning, governance, economics of adaptation, risk management, and their possible trade-offs and synergies with mitigation and sustainability objectives. URBANFLUXES project methods and final outcomes regarding the EO-based monitoring of the Urban Surface Energy Budget were presented by Dr. Nektarios Chrysoulakis during the “Urban Heat Islands Effect” Session that was held in the first day of the conference.

Dr. Nektarios Chrysoulakis presenting the latest findings of URBANFLUXES project in SPIE Remote Sensing 2017

URBANFLUXES project was an invited paper in SPIE Remote Sensing 2017 and was presented by Dr. Nektarios Chrysoulakis during the “Remote Sensing Technologies and Applications in Urban Environments” Specific Conference that was held during 11 – 12 September 2017. Dr. Nektarios Chrysoulakis presented results of the final phase of the URBANFLUXES Project during the session “Urban Air Quality and Climate” in Monday 11 September 2017, serving also as chair in multiple sessions of the event.

The 2nd Community of Practice meeting in Heraklion was held in the facilities of the Municipality of Heraklion

Nektarios Chrysoulakis giving an overview presentation of URBANFLUXES project

In the second part of the meeting, URBANFLUXES scientists made a series of presentations regarding the main project outcomes and data that can be potentially valuable for the sustainable urban planning in Heraklion. After this demonstration, a panel discussion took place with contributions from all participants. The discussion was focused on how URBANFLUXES data can support the climate change mitigation planning for the city of Heraklion. Furthermore, there was a round of questions to the URBANFLUXES Consortium on the potential of URBANFLUXES to support urban planning, urban environmental management, energy efficiency, urban governance and civil protection in the broader area of Heraklion.

Zina Mitraka explaining the model for Heat Storage Flux estimation

Stavros Stagakis presenting the methods of in-situ measurement and satellite estimation of turbulent heat fluxes

The local stakeholders gave very positive feedback on the utility of URBANFLUXES data in their efforts for sustainable planning in Heraklion. It was made clear by all participants that Heraklion lacks of efficient environmental planning and tools for environmental monitoring. Thus, URBANFLUXES project makes a significant contribution by upgrading the available environmental infrastructure with the most up-to-date and innovative tools. J. Klostermann, organizer of participatory methodology for stakeholder involvement in URBANFLUXES project, closed the meeting by making a wrap-up of the discussions and gathering the most important concluding remarks.

Judith Klostermann summarizing the conclusions of the 2nd Community of Practice meeting in Heraklion

The press release of the event was extensively covered by the local press (e.g. cretalive.gr, candianews.gr, rethnea.gr)

the Urbanfluxes Consortium had their fifth progress meeting

The project has now entered its final six months but still there are many exiting parts left, both with regards to research applications as well demonstration events presenting our methodology to estimate anthropogenic heat flux in urban areas using Earth Observation data. One main research activity that will be in focus until the end of the project will be to apply our method to the Copernicus project by using EO-information acquired from the Sentinels satellites.

The consortium has been very active regarding spreading the findings from the Urbanfluxes-project. Please visit our publication section on our website for more detailed information on out activities. Please also visit our Data repository to download some of the spatial products produced within the project. Here you can also access our station network of meteorological data for the three case study cities, Basel, London and Heraklion.

Gothenburg, Sweden. Overview photo

Dr. Nektarios Chrysoulakis presenting URBANFLUXES in the EGU General Assembly, 2017

In the same session, Dr. Ben Crawford has presented detailed technical information about the measurement and modeling of the urban turbulent heat fluxes in the URBANFLUXES case study of London.

Dr. Ben Crawford presenting the turbulent heat fluxes measuring methodologies in the EGU General Assembly, 2017

Mr. Tian Zhong at FORTH

Mr. Tian Zhong, the First Secretary of the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in Greece, during his visit in FORTH, was informed about URBANFLUXES by the Project Coordinator. They had a discussion on potential synergies for similar to URBANFLUXES applications in Chinese cities.

In the second semester of 2016, an important milestone for URBANFLUXES was the finalization and validation of the EO-based methods for the estimation of the net all-wave radiation, the net change in heat storage, as well as the turbulent sensible and latent heat fluxes in the three URBANFLUXES case studies (London, Basel and Heraklion). In the beginning of 2017, it is expected to conclude the methodology for anthropogenic heat flux estimation, based on the above EO-derived urban energy budget components. Furthermore, the adaptation of the whole URBANFLUXES methodology to Copernicus Sentinels synergies, towards producing time series of anthropogenic heat flux maps, is expected within the first semester of 2017.

4th URBANFLUXES Progress Meeting, Brussels

URBANFLUXES is entering the final and most challenging part of the project. The work by all partners during the last 2 years has revealed fascinating results and the great potential of the URBANFLUXES methodology. The finalization of the method and the production of anthropogenic heat flux maps from the Sentinels is now anticipated.

Presentation of project aims and methods by Nektarios Chrysoulakis

More specific methods and data for London were presented by Sue Grimmond, and Andy Gabey presented the first results of the Q_F calculations. From these results it seems that the man-made urban heat is much higher in London compared to Basel and Heraklion. Then it was time for discussion on potential uses of the URBANFLUXES outputs in urban policy making.

Second Community of Practice, London 14 February 2017

The audience came up with two interesting ideas. Firstly, not only to start using satellite data today and in the future, but to also look back and use, for example, 15 year old Landsat data and compare them with the present situation. Secondly, it could be interesting to use the data and models of URBANFLUXES to calculate the effects of different future scenarios in terms of urban heat and the energy balance. This could help urban planners with mitigation and adaptation to climate change.

After two years of work, the first numbers have been produced. Whereas the IPCC has calculated an average number of 65 Watts per square meter for urban areas, the UF numbers are 80w/m2 for Basel and 200-300 W/m2 for London. Although these numbers are for a larger area in Basel and for the commercial centre of London, we can already suspect that London is less energy-efficient than Basel.

So… two years of work just to produce these two numbers? Uhmmm…. no. Actually the aim is to develop a fast and reliable method that can produce numbers such as these for all European cities. London and Basel are case studies in which the factors of local climate are measured and calculated with several methods at the same time, both to test the reliability of different methods and to find the fastest way to do it.

In the CoP discussion the question was raised what URBANFLUXES can contribute to Basel when most energy is already renewable, and the energy regulations for construction in Basel are already very strict? For example, in Basel-Stadt active cooling is not allowed

2nd CoP meeting Basel 18 January 2017

for buildings (only small scale air conditioning for households); and heating of buildings with electricity is not allowed since 10 years. Basel-region is less strict and so are the urbanized areas of Germany and France. The researchers explained that it does not matter if energy is produced in a sustainable way; the heat production is the same. Also, traffic and old buildings still produce a lot of heat. Better insulation saves energy and this reduces anthropogenic heat significantly. It would also be interesting to investigate the effect of the strict laws by comparing the heat production from buildings of Basel-Stadt with the region.

Discussion in the group: green roofs are a popular measure but they may not help much to reduce the urban heat.

The human input of energy is not the only factor that heats up the city; the sun is most important and different building materials and urban green can make a difference. This will in turn reduce the need to cool buildings. By exploring all factors the URBANFLUXES project can help to to reduce the urban heat island effect, also in a city like Basel.

The problems with data acquisition across borders was further discussed in a presentation by Boris Stern of GeoRhena. GeoRhena is a European office that aims to improve cooperation in the upper Rhine between France, Germany and Switzerland. Data from the three countries become available through GeoRhena in the form of GIS maps. There are many differences in the data between nations and offices and it is too much work to acquire and adapt all of them. This is why GeoRhena works on request only. It can take between six months and two years to produce the requested maps. Placing a request now will be too late for the UF project.

In the discussion the question was raised what UF can contribute to Basel when all energy is already renewable, and the energy regulations for construction in Basel are already very strict? For example, in Basel-Stadt active cooling is not allowed for buildings (only small scale air conditioning for one household); and heating of buildings with electricity is not allowed since 10 years. Basel-region is less strict and so are Germany and France. The researchers explained that it does not matter if energy is produced in a sustainable way; the heat production is the same. Also, traffic and old buildings still produce a lot of heat. Energy can be saved with better insulation. This reduces anthropogenic heat significantly. It would also be interesting to investigate the effect of the strict laws by comparing the heat production from buildings of Basel-Stadt with the region. Another potential use of the project is to reduce the urban heat island effect; the human input of energy is not the only factor that heats up the city, the sun is most important and different building materials and urban green can make a difference. This will in turn reduce the need to cool buildings.

2nd CoP meeting Basel 18 January 2017

Boris Stern presenting GeoRhena at CoP meeting

Dr. Nektarios Chrysoulakis presenting the URBANFLUXES project in AGU Fall Meeting 2016

URBANFLUXES travelled all the way to San Francisco to join the world’s largest Earth and space science meeting and transfer the ideas and challenges of this innovative project across the global space community. Dr. Nektarios Chrysoulakis presented the latest outcomes of the URBANFLUXES project such as the spatial distributions of the urban heat fluxes estimated by the EO-based URBANFLUXES methodology and the first estimations of the anthropogenic heat flux for the case study cities. The following activities and the future objectives of URBANFLUXES were also discussed.

Keep track of URBANFLUXES team activity on twitter or google+ !

The IRGASON installed on the top of a mast in the center of Heraklion

Nektarios Spyridakis mounting the IRGASON on top of the telescopic mast

The Eddy Covariance system in the center of Heraklion

All the news and interesting updates regarding the Eddy Covariance measurements and other URBANFLUXES activities will be also published in our twitter or google+ accounts.

Stavros Stagakis discussing the ideas and practices of URBANFLUXES project with visitors during the Researchers’ Night at FORTH.

The visitors found the UF project very interesting and were very curious about the outcomes and the application of the project’s results. Much attention has been paid on the meteorological station network that has been installed in Heraklion in the framework of UF project. All visitors and especially the young students were attracted to the idea of monitoring the urban climate with in-situ and satellite measurements. The concept of providing all the data freely online and especially the real-time meteorological measurements captured most visitors’ attention. The local authorities have also visited the Researchers’ Night, where they were thoroughly informed about the UF project and the importance for Heraklion being one of the UF case studies.

The FORTH UF team during the Researchers’ Night.

Dr. Nektarios Chrysoulakis presenting the URBANFLUXES project in SPIE Remote Sensing Symposium

URBANFLUXES project was an invited paper in SPIE Remote Sensing Symposium 2016 and was also presented by Dr. Nektarios Chrysoulakis during the “Remote Sensing Technologies and Applications in Urban Environments” Specific Conference that was held during 26 – 27 September 2016. Dr. Nektarios Chrysoulakis presented the latest outcomes of the first phase of the URBANFLUXES project such as spatial distributions     of all urban heat fluxes for the case study cities estimated by the EO-based URBANFLUXES methodology. The following activities and the future objectives of URBANFLUXES were also discussed.

Keep track of URBANFLUXES team activity on twitter or google+ !