Bioclimatic comfort in urban planning and modeling spatial change during 2020–2100 according to climate change scenarios in Kocaeli, Türkiye

Abstract

The concentration of human activities in urban areas, increasing greenhouse gas emissions, and high global temperature values in urban areas have accelerated the research on global warming. They are the most widely used bioclimatic indices to describe the level of thermal sensation experienced by a person due to the changing climatic conditions of an urban area. Thermal comfort is an interdisciplinary spatial issue and a parameter directly affecting urban outdoor land uses. Thom's discomfort index was used to simulate two different climate change scenarios. This study aimed to predict the temporal and spatial changes of surface temperature, relative humidity, and bioclimatic comfort zones of Kocaeli province in terms of climate comfort in the context of SSP 245 and SSP 585 scenarios of IPCC. The current bioclimatic comfort areas throughout the region and their possible situations in 2040, 2060, 2080, and 2100 were modeled using ArcGIS 10.8 software. In the current map, 79.6% of the city consists of cool areas, 18.6% of cold, and 1.8% of comfortable regions. According to the SSP 245 scenario for the year 2100, it is observed that the cool and cold areas warm up, and the comfortable areas increase to 23.5%. According to the SSP 585 scenario, it was determined that comfortable areas reached 82.6%, and hot areas were formed in the province. The geographical structure's effect on the regions' heating draws attention.