Background of the Study

Energy and climate are highly associated with the built environment. Built environment is not only comprised of building collections, but also the physical results of various economic, social and environmental processes (Santamouris & Asimakopoulos, 2001). Urban micro-climate change effects can be seen when major cities experience the formation of urban heat islands, due to urban expansion, pollution growth, and the development of major industrial activities in metropolitan areas (Ghazanfari et al., 2009). Urbanization promote the changes of land use and land cover. Urban scale investigation of climate modification requires one to look into human activities.

Human activities are a major influence of urban climate because the concentration effects of their activities may differ considerably from surrounding rural regions. Changes of land cover will relatively change surface properties, like heat capacity, heat conductivity, albedo, roughness length, maximum evaporative conductivity, heterogeneity, Leaf Area Index (LAI), and water features (Mölders, 2011).