Uploaded on 2016-07-05 by Alejandro Juan Pineda Sánchez

1. Check the temperature differences in US cities Checking the US cities, i have been very surprised with the top position, Las Vegas, with more than 7 degrees of diference because of the heat island effect. Despite being surrounded by a desert, the focus of human activities in the city it is much hotter than the non-urban areas around it. 2. Which are the main UHI effects that you can identify in your area? In another exercise, the measurement of my living city, Elche (a little city in the south-east coast of Spain) has been of 5 degrees more and less. The measurement was: Difference = 30 degrees (measurement 1, in the center of Elche) - 25 degrees (measurement 2, in La Hoya, a countryside area near to elche) This difference has his main reason in the materials used in the ground of the central square of Elche (stone, with a lot of heat capacity), and the presence of buildings of 6-7 stories around it, that makes the heat evacuation more difficult. I am uploading an image of the center of Elche and the rural area of La Hoya, at south of the city. The province of Alicante (where is Elche)is very dry, so there is no a lot of vegetation in these rural areas. 3. Which are the measures you would propose? The center of the city has very traditional materials (stone) and lack of vegetation (other areas of the city have a lot of palm trees, but this zone of the center is an exception). It is necessary to put more plants in the center, perhaps in green roofs or green walls in certain streets, and putting materials with less heat capacity in the ground of the central square, like wood or certain areas of grass or soil. 4. Is UHI effect concerning policy making in your area? At the moment there are no official policies for reducing the UHI effect, this effect is not well known in the city and has no much influence in urban policies. For this, it is necessary first to make the people and the goberment aware of this effect and make policies, like the marked in the point 3 of this exercise, for decrease this urban heat island effect.