Urban heat island effect

Measuring the effect in Sydney

The City of Sydney is collecting information to see how shade trees and pavement colour affect urban temperatures. Extreme and persistent high temperatures cause stress to the health of people, plants and animals.

Cities can be a few degrees warmer than regional areas because surfaces such as roads, foothpaths and the sides of buildings absorb and release energy from the sun.

Monitoring systems have been installed in Chippendale and Redfern. The poles contain a temperature and humidity meter, and one has a pyranometer which measures the strength of the sun. Each also has a unit that sends the information to a server where it can be viewed online, and a small solar panel to power it all.

Real-time results can be viewed at ADMS. When you visit the site, please use 'cospublic' as the user name and password to log in. Please see the link to the right.

The City intends to work with a university research partner to best work out costs and benefits of solutions to reduce the urban heat island effect. This could be a way to address rising temperatures resulting from climate change.

Measuring the effect will help to form the way we design our city and make it a more comfortable place to live and work.

The University of NSW, in partnership with HASSEL, developed a report called ‘Micro-Urban Climatic Thermal Emissions in a Medium-Density Residential Precinct’ which was based on a thermal image technique in Victoria Park.