Future environmental assessment and urban planning by downscaling simulations

The outline of a sophisticated downscaling simulation model developed by the author and colleagues and its application for projecting the future urban thermal environment during the progress of global warming are introduced in this paper. Examples of inevitable uncertainties in future projections brought by the choices of a greenhouse gas emissions scenario and general circulation model (GCM) data are also shown. Moreover, three examples of the environmental assessment for future urban planning, i.e., (1) disaster mitigation and prevention urban structure scenario, (2) compact city scenario, and (3) city master plan in a developing country, by the developed downscaling simulation model are presented. Downscaling simulation is a very powerful environmental assessment tool and is very useful for urban planning, especially in the inevitable future global warming period.