The Lancet Planetary Health, July 2024
The impact of urban configuration types on urban heat islands, air pollution, CO2 emissions, and mortality in Europe: a data science approach
The world is becoming increasingly urbanised. As cities around the world continue to grow, it is important for urban planners and policy makers to understand how different urban configuration patterns affect the environment and human health. However, previous studies have provided mixed findings.
We aimed to identify European urban configuration types, on the basis of the local climate zones categories and street design variables from Open Street Map, and evaluate their association with motorised traffic flows, surface urban heat island (SUHI) intensities, tropospheric NO2, CO2 per person emissions, and age-standardised mortality.