TY - THES ID - 135226765 TI - How hot is too hot? Assessment of the Urban Heat Island effect in Ha Tinh, Vietnam AU - Mertens, Annelies AU - Verbist, Bruno AU - Somers, Ben AU - KU Leuven. Faculteit Bio-ingenieurswetenschappen. Opleiding Master of Bioscience Engineering. Agro- and Ecosystems Engineering (Leuven) PY - 2018 PB - Leuven KU Leuven. Faculteit Bio-ingenieurswetenschappen DB - UniCat UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:135226765 AB - With more people living in urban than rural areas, urban areas are rapidly increasing. The related increased imperviousness and building densification alter the conditions of the urban environment regarding various climatic variables, including temperature and relative humidity. The phenomenon where temperature tends to be higher in urban areas compared to its surrounding sub-urban and rural areas is also referred to as the ‘urban heat island’ (UHI) effect. This research aims at revealing differentiation in temperature and relative humidity related to the UHI effect among different LCZs. The LCZ concept proved to be a useful framework for differentiating between various parts of the city in a systematic way. The built zones, which are characterized by a higher building density and less vegetation, attain higher temperatures than the land cover zones. However, relative humidity is lower in these LCZs. The degree of variation between the LCZs differs depending on the considered period. Both temperature and relative humidity are important indicators in determining thermal comfort. With the use of psychrometric charts with comfort zone after Givoni (1992) and the Discomfort Index (DI), the thermal conditions in Ha Tinh are evaluated. The recordings of temperature and relative humidity indicate heat stress as moderate to heavy for most of the time. However, compared to the rest of the year, the measurement period is a period with relatively more heat stress. The degree of heat stress is also highly dependent on the considered period and differs among LCZs. ER -