London's urban heat island: a multi-scaled assessment framework

London's urban heat island (UHI) impacts on health, comfort and energy use. Projected higher temperatures due to a change in climate would further exacerbate the effects of London's UHI. It is therefore necessary to understand its net impact and adopt strategies to cope with and mitigate its negative aspects. The Lucid project is addressing both these issues and this paper focuses on the second component. There is currently a lack of practical assessment instruments available to planners, designers and developers that can assess a development's impact on the UHI. This paper thus presents a proposal for a multi-scaled UHI assessment tool framework that could be used in developing relevant planning policy and assessing UHI mitigation design strategies. The paper discusses how a framework of this type could be integrated into the development planning process in London and the UK.