Effects of Climate Change on Thermal Comfort and Energy Demand in a Single-Family House in Poland

Assessment of biometeorological conditions in Eastern Mediterranean City Adana, Turkey from past to the future

Human bioclimatic comfort (HBC) is an important subject of climatology in the field of physical geography. Human bioclimatic comfort (HBC) is the feeling of satisfied and comfortable within the ambient atmospheric thermal environment. Earth climate system has been exposed to changes from the beginning, but since 19th century human - induced factors have contributed to these changes. HBC is the combined effect of atmospheric conditions and affected by all the changes in them. Turkey is among the countries in Mediterranean region, expected to develop higher vulnerabilities to the (bio) climate hazards. Therefore, a Mediterranean city in the south of the country, Adana, was chosen as the study area. HBC assessment was made for the past (1961 - 1990), present (1991 - 2022), near (2030 - 2060) and distant future (2070 - 2100) using hourly - data from the official meteorology station between 1961 and 2022, daily data of the climate model scenarios (Representative Concentration Pathway - RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) and Physiological Equivalent Temperature (PET) index, the Rayman model and Geographic Information Systems in the spatial distribution of HBC conditions. The analysis showed that the prevalence of "cold" and "cool" stresses has decreased while that of "hot" and "very hot" stresses has increased from the past to the present in Adana. It is predicted that present conditions will continue in the near and distant future, all comfort ranges will increase to the following warm range and the ideal period for HBC conditions will be the winter season. In order to reduce the adverse HBC conditions in cities due to climate change by creating climate resilient, sustainable and healthy cities, urban design and planning principles should be followed from a geographical point of view.

Factors Affecting Residential End-Use Energy: Multiple Regression Analysis Based on Buildings, Households, Lifestyles, and Equipment

Building characteristics, household compositions, lifestyles, and home equipment are recognized as the main factors influencing residential energy consumption, which has been a subject of extensive exploration for many years now. However, the quantitative correlation models between the above factors and residential end-use energy have not been fully studied. This paper aims to explore the determinants of residential end-use energy consumption by a comprehensive analysis based on the factors of building characteristics, household compositions, lifestyles, and home equipment. For this purpose, we investigated and collected the building information of 66 households and obtained the data through an installed measurement system of the annual residential end-use energy from July 2019 to June 2020. Subsequently, six multiple regression models were used to quantitatively analyze the valid determinants of each end-use energy. The main results were as follows: for cooling energy consumption, the greatest effective variable was FM_no (22–59, number of family members aged 22 to 59); the most influential variable was found to be FM_no (number of family members) for DHW and appliances energy consumption; for lighting and cooking energy consumption, the most effective variables were AREA (floor area) and Cooking (average daily cooking hours), respectively. Moreover, the order of influence of building characteristics, household compositions, lifestyles, and home equipment over each end-use energy consumption is as follows: households > equipment > lifestyles for cooling and DHW, households > buildings > equipment for lighting, equipment > lifestyles for appliances and cooking.

Urban “Three States” Human Settlements High-Quality Coordinated Development

The high-quality interaction of urban reality human settlements (RHSs), pseudo-human settlements (PHSs) and image human settlements (IHSs) can better explain the constantly updated human settlements phenomena under the human–land-relationship regional system. At present, the basic connotation, empirical exploration and optimized path of high-quality and coordinated development of “three states” of human settlements are not clear. In this paper, we take 14 prefecture-level cities in Liaoning Province as case areas and empirically explore their spatial patterns, coupling and coordination spatial relationships, driving mechanisms and development paths by using a coupling and coordination model, the entropy weight method and the geographic detector method. The results indicate that: (1) The spatial pattern of high-quality development of “three states” of human settlements varies significantly in different regions, forming a “dual-core” and “hump” spatial structure. (2) RHSs, PHSs and IHSs are not completely coordinated, forming “high–high–high” and “low–low–low” types, represented by Shenyang and Fuxin. (3) The high-quality coordinated development of “three states” of human settlements is driven by economic conditions, population conditions, entertainment systems and other factors. The population system, the social communication system and the support system, respectively, lead the high-quality coordinated development of RHSs, PHSs and IHSs.