Impacts of urban heat island effect on critical urban infrastructure: a review of studies published between 2012 and 2022

Abstract

The urban heat island (UHI) effect has become a prominent urban characteristic in the last few decades and brings significant changes to the local urban climate. Such changes have severe impacts on the lifetime efficiency and performance of “ critical urban infrastructure” (CUI). As CUI forms the backbone of vital urban systems and socio-economic processes, it becomes important to understand the various impacts of UHI on different CUI elements. The impacts of UHI on CUI have consequently become a prominent study area within the urban research domain. This study presents a systematic bibliometric review of 118 relevant articles published within the last decade (2012–2022), selected from a variety of indexed, scholarly databases. The articles mainly focused on developed regions and large urban areas. The review shows a consistent upward trend in the annual number of publications on UHI effects with a peak reached in 2020. Of the four major CUI groups studied for UHI impacts, built form and energy and communication (with a strong focus on increased energy consumption) are the most prominent topics in the current literature, followed by transportation, and water and sanitation. Research on other CUI elements is still quite sparse, and significant efforts would be needed to identify the nature of UHI's impacts on these factors. This review highlights that the UHI impact on CUI is a developing research area that requires further attention and illustrates the state of knowledge and gaps present in current research. These findings provide a clear direction for future UHI impact studies.