Süleyman Toy

Evaluation of 10-Year Temperature Differences between Urban and Rural Areas of a Well-Planned, Unindustrialized, and Medium-Sized Turkish Town, Erzincan

The aim of this study was to show that the effect of a city with favorable characteristics for landscape and urban planning on urban versus rural temperature differences is lower by determining the distribution of daily mean, the maximum and minimum temperatures, and the extent of their differences in urban and rural areas of a small-size and unindustrialized Turkish city, Erzincan, which has favorable landscape and urban planning characteristics due to its reestablishment after a violent earthquake in 1992. With this aim, temperature data were obtained from urban and rural stations of the city and evaluated over a 10-year period (3,653 days from 1999 to 2008) and urban-rural differences of 0.8, 0.9, and 2.0°C were found in daily mean, maximum, and minimum temperatures, respectively, while the most prevalent range of these differences was determined to be 0.0–1.9°C over the study period. It was concluded in the study that in order to design more comfortable and livable urban environments, professionals should consider the population, industrial areas and traffic loads, green area amount and density, and form of buildings in a city and also lay emphasizes on the cautions through which they can create urban environments with less population and larger green areas, e.g., using green belts or constructing smaller suburban sites by separating commercial and industrial areas from housing sites in newly developing areas.

Human population growth and temperature increase along with the increase in urbanisation, motor vehicle numbers and green area amount in the sample of Erzurum city, Turkey

In the study, main purpose was to determine the effect of population growth along with the increase in urbanisation, motor vehicle use and green area amount on the temperature values using a 55-year data set in Erzurum, which is hardly industrialised, and one of the coldest cities with highest elevation in Turkey. Although the semi-decadal increases, means of which are 0.1°C for mean, minimum and maximum temperatures, are not clear enough to make a strong comment even in the lights of figures or tables, it was found as the result of the statistical analysis that population growth and increases in the number of vehicles, the number of buildings and the green area amount in the city have no significant effect on mean temperatures. However, the relationships between population growth and maximum temperature; and the number of vehicles and minimum temperature were found to be statistically significant.

Evaluation of human thermal comfort ranges in urban climate of winter cities on the example of Erzurum city.

Human thermal comfort conditions can be evaluated using various indices based on simple empirical approaches or more complex and reliable human-biometeorological approaches. The latter is based on the energy balance model of the human body, and their calculation is supplemented with computer software. Facilitating the interpretation of results, the generally applied indices express the effects of thermal environment in the well-known temperature unit, just like in the case of the widely used index, the physiologically equivalent temperature (PET). Several studies adopting PET index for characterizing thermal components of climate preferred to organize the resulted PET values into thermal sensation categories in order to demonstrate the spatial and/or temporal characteristics of human thermal comfort conditions. The most general applied PET ranges were derived by Central European researchers, and they are valid for assumed values of internal heat production of light activity and thermal resistance of clothing representing a light business suit. Based on the example of Erzurum city, the present work demonstrates that in a city with harsh winter, the original PET ranges show almost purely discomfort and they seem to be less applicable regarding cold climate conditions. Taking into account 34-year climate data of Erzurum, the annual distribution of PET is presented together with the impact of application of different PET categorization systems, including 8°- and 7°-wide PET intervals. The demonstrated prior analyses lack any questionnaire filed surveys in Erzurum. Thus, as a next step, detailed field investigations would be required with the aim of definition of new PET categorization systems which are relevant for local residents who are adapted to this climatic background, and for tourists who may perform various kinds of winter activities in Erzurum and therefore may perceive the thermal environment more comfortable.