Urban Heat Island Simulation and Monitoring in the Hot and Humid Climate Cities of Guayaquil and Durán, Ecuador

Urban Heat Island (UHI) research has been increasingly impacting science during the last decades. As most of humanity is living in cities, urban climatology is a consolidating field that attract more and more interest with time. Higher temperature in cities are involved in many processes and have impacts on energy needs, thermal comfort, public health and air pollution. Especially in tropical climates, where temperature and humidity ranges are high per se, the impact of urbanization processes can be even deeper. Despite of the high urbanization rates and the climate in which most populated cities of Latin-America are placed, there are only few studies that estimates UHI intensities and proposes mitigation strategies conducted in the region up to now. Here we will briefly look at the most important studies on UHI for tropical cities, then we will describe the pioneer studies that we conducted in the cities of Guayaquil and Duran, Ecuador.