This paper discusses the effects of urban design and meteorological parameters on thermal comfort for pedestrians at street level. A comparison of different urban modifications allows an objective assessment of the effectiveness of climate adaptation measures. Because, these results are based on different measurement and modelling methods, they are given in various comfort indicators and studied in a specific urban context, climate and weather condition. This study presents the relative effects of design measures based on identical input parameters and one simulation method using the high resolution three-dimensional model ENVI-met and the thermal comfort index physiological equivalent temperature (PET).

Urban facilities are major contributors to annual energy consumption and therefore, evaluating their energy efficiency and retrofit planning play a major role in achieving sustainability goals. For urban facilities, such as buildings, energy performance audits could be conducted by detailed evaluation at building level. However, at urban level, detailed evaluation is cost and time intensive. Therefore, in this study, we investigated the correlation between land surface temperature, obtained through satellite imagery, and energy consumption patterns at urban level to explore its feasibility for energy performance evaluations. New York City was used as the main case study for conducting the analysis. We have investigated the correlation between energy consumption intensity and temperature at city block level for selected points. The outcome demonstrates a strong correlation between energy consumption intensity and land surface temperature. The observed correlation could potentially be leveraged for developing an approach for energy performance auditing.