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The impact of Unplanned Growth of Urban Areas Upon The Heat Island
Phenomenon

Article  in  Ain Shams Engineering Journal · November 2017

DOI: 10.1016/j.asej.2017.11.001

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 Ain Shams Engineering Journal xxx (2018) xxx–xxx

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The effect of unplanned growth of urban areas on heat island

phenomena
M.A. Bek a,b,⇑, N. Azmy c, Sameh Elkafrawy d
a
Department of Physics and Engineering Mathematics, Faculty of Engineering, Tanta University, Tanta 31734, Egypt
b
Department of Basic Sciences, Faculty of Engineering, Horus Universality, Damietta 34518, Egypt
c
Department of Architect, Faculty of Engineering, Tanta University, Egypt
d
Marine Science Department, National Authority for Remote Sensing and Space Sciences (NARSS), Egypt

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: With the advent of the housing problem in Egypt, many residents have resorted to set up informal hous-
Received 22 January 2017 ing scheme to achieve the need of housing. This has significant urban, environmental and social impact
Revised 13 September 2017 on those residents.
Accepted 12 November 2017
This research focuses on the impact of unplanned growth of urban areas on the environmental behav-
Available online xxxx
ior, the amount of environmental compatibility and thermal comfort to the stakeholders of such areas.
This study investigates the phenomenon of urban heat island in these areas.
Keywords:
This research focuses on evaluating the effect of informal growth in urban areas on the Urban Heat
Urban Heat Island (UHI)
GIS
Island Phenomena (UHI), by comparing the thermal images of two areas (One officially planned and
Thermal the other is unplanned). Both areas have the same thermal and spatial characteristics. The comparison
Planning of thermal images during the period from 1990 to 2016 indicates that unplanned and highly populated
Informal areas areas suffer from an increase of 1–4 °C.
Urban informality Ó 2018 Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Ain Shams University. This is an open access
Dar el Salam article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Maadi

1. Introduction laws lead to severe problems [1]. These problems are the result of
the absence of services, facilities and infrastructure.
The phenomenon of informal areas has been associated with This phenomenon is clearly observed when an informal area is
the rapid growth of urban areas in cities. The direct cause for that built up adjacent to a well-planned area. The urban growth is
is the gap between housing demands and the actual offered hous- always associated with the phenomenon of the urban heat island.
ing. This problem is a major result of the overpopulation in devel- This phenomenon becomes evident in overcrowded areas where
oping countries especially in Egypt. the high building densities are common.
This global phenomenon is common in Egypt and considered as This paper aims to reveal the effect of informal urbanism in
a big challenge for the Egyptian government. This housing type developing countries on the urban heat island phenomenon. This
always suffers from the lack of health conditions and doesn’t com- target can be achieved via the study of the effect of informal
ply with the laws and legislations that organize housing building growth of an urban area on the thermal behavior.
within the urban areas. The paper also compares the thermal behavior of unplanned area
Hence, the informal urban growth represents a defect in urban with an adjacent formal area that includes green areas. The thermal
development in cities. The absence of design and planning stan- images used for comparisons are obtained via satellites. These
dards together with the uncontrolled application of the organizing images illustrate the contrast in temperatures between formal
planned areas and informal areas that are not subjected to laws
and regulations that organize the Egyptian urbanism. Hence, the
effect of urban fabric on the urban heat island phenomenon can be
⇑ Corresponding author.
revealed.
Peer review under responsibility of Ain Shams University.

1.1. Methodology

The methodology adopted in this paper depends on the theoret-

Production and hosting by Elsevier
ical study for the informal urban areas and their different patterns.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asej.2017.11.001
2090-4479/Ó 2018 Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Ain Shams University.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Please cite this article in press as: Bek MA et al. The effect of unplanned growth of urban areas on heat island phenomena. Ain Shams Eng J (2018), https://
doi.org/10.1016/j.asej.2017.11.001
2 M.A. Bek et al. / Ain Shams Engineering Journal xxx (2018) xxx–xxx

It also depends on the study of the distinct features and character- The urban planning authority has defined these informal areas
istics for these informal and unplanned areas including the social, in Egypt on 2006 as: Any area that was developed or built by indi-
environmental or urban features. The methodology also links the vidual efforts including one-floor buildings or more, or strews in
informal areas to the urban heat island phenomenon that affects the absence of laws. These areas are also not included in urban
the urbanization to reveal its causes. The paper introduces also plans for cities. The buildings may be in good condition or they
an analytical approach for finding the effect of the urbanization can be environmentally and socially unsafe. In addition, they
type on the urban heat island. A comparative analysis to the ther- may lack the basic services and facilities [3]. The unplanned areas
mal maps that are obtained by satellites is conducted for two adja- are a type of informal areas, which are built and developed far from
cent areas in Cairo. These areas are: an informal area called ‘‘Dar el the formal plans. This study focuses on this type of informal areas.
Salam” and a formal area called ‘‘Maadi”. The thermal maps are The following discussion includes the features of unplanned
recorded at specific times and are used to reveal the thermal informal areas:
behavior and hence the urban heat island phenomenon in the
study areas. 2.1. Urban aspects

The most distinctive feature in unplanned informal areas is the

2. The informal housing problem distorted fabric due to the lack of planning studies that lead to
unplanned growth. These areas also are not subject to the laws
Informal areas represent a phenomenon that was arisen and and regulations that organize the planning and construction [8].
accompanied by the rapid urban growth in cities. It is the result There is no control on heights, which has led to higher buildings
of the high housing demands while the offered is low. The term over the legal heights. This in turn increases the population density
‘‘informal areas” refers to a residential area in societies where its of those areas; the density of up to thousands of people per 10,000
inhabitants build their own shelter. This can be observed when square meters [4]. As for the motion paths, we find that the streets
there is a lack in formal housing with prices that fit incomes [2]. are very narrow and unpaved [9], In addition, there is difficulty in
These areas are called informal as they represent informal laying utility networks and linking them to the basic mass urban,
development in terms of law or urban status or both as shown in making them often not sufficient to the needs in the informal areas
Fig. 1 [3]. This type of urban development had been found after [10].
1950 [4,5].
David Sims has segmented informal areas in Cairo into 4 types: 2.2. Social aspects
[6,7]
Unplanned growth in urban areas leads to major social prob-
 Informal settlements on agricultural land lems, which related to the weak social community and the lack
 Informal settlements on former desert, state land of education in these particular areas, as they attract low-income
 deteriorated historic core land class [11]. Informal unplanned growth has led to increased popula-
 Deteriorated urban pockets. tion density areas [12], which is associated with many big social
problems in terms of lower socio-economic level of those zones
[5]. Which affects most of the population of these areas. This works
on the composition of socially, educationally and healthily weak
society [6].

2.3. Environmental aspects

The emergence of informal areas in the absence of law and leg-

islation governing urban has led to the emergence of a lot of envi-
ronmental problems such as, the lack of awareness in dealing with
the waste and the lack of clear mechanisms for garbage collection
and disposal [4]. Lack of infrastructure in these informal areas or
even degradation in other areas also has led to many of the adverse
environmental effects that negatively affect the inhabitants of
these urban areas [10]. It is also found that the narrow streets
and their bad conditions in the unplanned areas with high popula-
tion density has led to the absence of good ventilation to those
areas, high pollution levels and increased urban temperature [9].
Thus, the informal growth of urban societies has negative
impact on the environment. Raising the temperature of urbaniza-
tion and increasing pollution increases the greenhouse gases. The
result is the urban heat island phenomenon that is sweeping many
urban societies, especially those are unplanned. So we will address
below the urban heat island phenomenon and the most important
factors that led to its appearance in the urban areas.

3. The urban heat island phenomenon

The urban heat island phenomenon, is sweeping the large urban

cities around the world [13]. The phenomenon resides clearly in
Fig. 1. Classification of urban areas according to the legality status. the high-density urban areas, which are characterized by randomly

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 M.A. Bek et al. / Ain Shams Engineering Journal xxx (2018) xxx–xxx 3

planning and construction. The term thermal islands describes the of the study area is Dar El Salam, which is presented in Fig. 2.
hottest urban areas which are surrounded by open areas [14], Although it is located nearby Maadi, the area is classified as one
where the urban heat island phenomenon represents the climate of highest populated and with informal hosing scheme area in
change and heat accumulation in the built environment with Cairo. The area was originally constructed over cultivated agricul-
regard to its open surroundings [15]. Urban heat island phe- ture area. There is lack of all type of utilities.
nomenon increases the air temperature in cities by (1–3 °C) in
average during the day, while rising from (12 °C) at night [16]. This
6. Urban criteria for the case study
finding highlighted the urban heat island weak effect during the
day compared to the strong effect after sunset. The authors refer
6.1. Dar El Salam area
this variation to the slow release of heat inside the high-density
urban areas.
Dar El Salam area is considered as an informal area and one of
the most overpopulated areas not only in the Greater Cairo, but
4. Unplanned informal areas and urban heat island also all over the whole country as Fig. 3. It is featured with huge
number of population almost half million according to the 2014
Heat island phenomenon is a universal problem especially in population national scan [21].
highly populated areas. Unplanned informal areas always have The area featured narrow streets with very high buildings with
dense urbanization and lacks many urban, social and environmen- section ratio 1:5. The poor, unsuitable movement axis with no clear
tal aspects. ways in turn leads to environmentally improper areas with chaotic
The following factors are considered as the main drivers of traffic. There is no green area at all as can be seen from Fig. 4; in
the (HI) phenomenon in unplanned informal areas in addition, there is no appropriate garbage collecting mechanism.
particular. The full description for that area can be found in Table 1, which
Urban geometry: The dimensions of buildings and the spaces represents a comparison of the most important architectural and
between them affect the amount of air flowing into the construc- environmental features that characterizes the study area.
tion [17]. As well as the amount of energy absorbed and the
amount of thermal radiation at night [18]. 6.2. The Maadi area
Thermal properties of building materials: Affect the degree of
urbanization temperature and suspending the thermal energy Maadi area is a distinctive area of Greater Cairo, where the
inside these areas due to their high thermal capacity [19]. The solar number of the estimated population until the year 2014 reaches
radiation absorption is increased significantly with the existence of about 93,203 inhabitants [21] as shown in Fig. 5. It is a planned
plate brick together with concrete and asphalt sidewalks and area in accordance with the environmental and urban correct foun-
streets. Moreover, the coefficient of reflectivity is less than the dations. It contains many green areas and open areas as shown in
outer perimeter of the green surrounding areas [18]. Fig. 6.
Urban density: Where narrow streets and high buildings It also does not contain workshops and shops exist only in des-
reduce the movement of air out buildings and increasing the fric- ignated areas, where that region may not be licensing contami-
tion process [20]. In addition, it becomes hard process to get rid nated uses [22]. As for the height of the buildings, it is found
of the hot air inside those overcrowded urban areas, especially that it does not exceed the street width in this area or about three
unplanned [18]. floors above the ground [22], allowing a healthy environment
Exhaust pollutants: Reduce the air transparency, which traps inside the streets and building.
heat inside urban areas. In addition, it prevents the cooling process
by re-radiation at night. This process raises the degree of urbaniza-
7. Urban heat islands measurement techniques
tion heat.
Lack of green areas: The Vegetation cover reduces the temper-
Urban heat island studies are generally conducted in two ways.
ature of the air through the processes of evaporation and transpi-
One is measuring air temperature through the use of automobile
ration [18]. The more population growth and unplanned areas,
transects and weather station network. The other way is measur-
the less vegetation cover which in turn raises the temperature of
ing the surface temperature through the use of airborne or remote
those unplanned urban areas with dense buildings.
sensing satellite thermal data. The second technique is utilized to
Hence, the next section deals with studying the impact of infor-
investigate the effect of UHI over two Egyptian districts, (Maadi,
mal unplanned areas on the urban heat island phenomenon,
and Dar El Salam). Four Landsat scenes were selected, processed
through the comparative analysis for the area of the study by
and analyzed to retrieve land surface temperature during, 1990,
means of thermal images for each.
1998 and 2015 (Summer and Winter) [23]. Mono-window algo-
rithm was applied in the study. Surface emissivity was calculated
5. The study area based on NDVI and atmospheric transmittance was calculated
based on water vapor content, which was calculated from weather
The case study area is carefully selected so that it is consists of stations data i.e. minimum and maximum temperature and rela-
two adjacent areas with two different architectural characteristics. tive humidity.
The first area is Maadi district and the other one is Dar El Salam Brief introduction to different LST retrieval methods
area. Maadi is a rich luxuriant district in the southern part of the With its relative higher resolution and easy availability, Landsat
Great Cairo, Egypt. The area is famous for its high number of satellite is one of the longest running programs for global change
squares, and green areas as can be seen in Fig. 2. There are numer- research, and has been applied for agriculture, geology, regional
ous luxury small villas in Maadi; most of them are with low height planning and urban environment. Urban heat island effect studies
structures. There are a few high buildings along the River Nile bank with LST derived from Landsat data have been widely conducted.
‘‘Corniche”, and in the more up to date, eastern part of Maadi, ‘‘As the thermal infrared (TIR) channel, band 6 records the radia-
known as Degla. tion with spectral range in 10.4–12.5 lm from the surface of the
The area is located on the waterway Nile around 12 km earth. Different LST retrieval methods have been developed accord-
upstream from downtown Cairo, on the east bank. The other part ing to different data sources, such as the split-window method,

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Fig. 2. Case study area (Dar El Salam & Maadi).

Fig. 3. Dar El Salam area map. Fig. 4. Dar El Salam urban fabric.

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doi.org/10.1016/j.asej.2017.11.001
doi.org/10.1016/j.asej.2017.11.001
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Table 1
The architectural and environmental features that characterizes the study area.

Dar El Salam Maadi

M.A. Bek et al. / Ain Shams Engineering Journal xxx (2018) xxx–xxx
Location An area close to Maadi at the south of Cairo Located in the south of the city on the east bank of the Nile
River
Planning It was built as an informal neighborhood on agricultural ‘‘Old Maadi” is one of the finest residential areas in Cairo that
land and some desert land is planned by the Canadian officer Captain Alexander Adams,
as a residential neighborhood of a single format
Area Manned space: 6.823 km2* Manned space: 2.480 km2*
Population Estimated population until 07/01/2016 is 513,118** Estimated population until 07/01/2016 is 96,531**
Urban and environmental features Streets and their widths Streets are narrow. Their widths are less than 6 m. The Streets’ width are more than 10 m. They are straight and
streets are unpaved paved streets
Use of buildings Overlapped uses: increased number of street vendors, There is no overlap in the uses
exploitation of roads and the existence of workshops
and small industries
Heights and section ratio High buildings on narrow streets. The section ratio is Mostly low-rise buildings in Old Maadi. The section ratio are
about 1:5 about 1:1 or 1:1.5
Infrastructure Deficiencies and weaknesses in infrastructure Infrastructure planned are well and subject to the legislation
of the region
Green landscape It is characterized by the lack of greeneries and open It is characterized by squares and green areas as well as Areas
spaces afforestation

*
Cairo Governorate Portal, URL: http://www.cairo.gov.eg/CairoPortal/default.aspx.
**
http://www.capmas.gov.eg/Pages/StaticPages.aspx?page_id=7188.

5
6 M.A. Bek et al. / Ain Shams Engineering Journal xxx (2018) xxx–xxx

temperature/emissivity separation method, mono-window

method, and the single-channel method. Among these methods
three LST retrieval methods: radiative transfer equation, mono-
window algorithm and single-channel algorithm can be applied
to Landsat data. Although all of these methods can provide good
results, the radiative transfer equation is not available without
some parameters of atmospheric profiles simultaneously when
the satellite passes. In addition, mono-window algorithm can get
a better result than the single-channel algorithm with a root mean
square deviation of 0.9” [24].
Thus, the mono-window algorithm is applied in this study to
retrieve the LST of the investigated study areas from Landsat [23]
proposed the mono-window algorithm for retrieving LST from
Landsat data. This technique is based on thermal radiance transfer
equation. This algorithm only requires three parameters; emissiv-
ity, transmittance and effective mean atmospheric temperature to
Fig.5. Maadi map. retrieve LST from Landsat.

8. Thermal maps analysis

From the thermal map of the study area during 1990

From Fig. 7, it is observed that the temperature of Dar El Salam
unplanned area reaches 35–36 °C in most of the area. However, it
reaches 32 °C in some areas. In contrast, the temperature in the
well-planned area (El Maadi) is 30 °C almost everywhere especially
in the central area which is featured with low building heights and
more green areas. This clearly highlights the major role of planning
areas in the heat comfort.
From the thermal maps of the year 1998
Examining Fig. 8, In 1998, it is evident that the temperature in
Dar El Salam area reaches 37 °C and reaches 39 °C in some parts of
the area. By Examining this results, it is found that the higher tem-
perature is for parts with higher population and pollution. On the
other hand, the temperature in the Maadi area ranges between
Fig. 6. Maadi urban view.
32 and 33 °C, which is close to the performance.

Fig. 7. Thermal map for 1990 (Dar El Salam & Maadi).

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 M.A. Bek et al. / Ain Shams Engineering Journal xxx (2018) xxx–xxx 7

Fig. 8. Thermal map for 1998 (Dar El Salam & Maadi).

Fig. 9. Thermal map for 2015 (Dar El Salam & Maadi).

In the most recent thermal images of 2015 Thermal images for the two urban areas show that temperature
The temperature continued increasing in both areas as shown in increases with time in both areas. In Dar El Salam, the temperature
Fig. 9. It reached 42 °C in Dar El Salam, which means it became very increases by 11.5% between the years 1990 and 1998 and by
hot. Although, in Maadi area the temperature reached only 37 °C. 15–16% between 1998 and 2015. In Maadi, the percentage increase
Moreover, the temperature in green open areas gives lower tem- in the period from 1990 to 1998 is approximately 10% and 13% in
perature, which indicates the importance of it for better life the period from 1998 to 2015. This indicates an increase in temper-
conditions. ature when comparing the two areas, Dar El Salam and Maadi. An
Hence, it is found that, through the thermal image for the study increase of 10%, 13%, and 14% at years 1990, 1998 and 2015 respec-
areas of Maadi and Dar El Salam during the years 1990-1998-2015, tively is concluded comparing Dar El Salam to Maadi.
the urban growth in unplanned areas has an impact on the temper- Form overall prospective point of view, the analysis of the tem-
ature as shown in Fig. 10. perature raise for both areas within the total period time of the

Please cite this article in press as: Bek MA et al. The effect of unplanned growth of urban areas on heat island phenomena. Ain Shams Eng J (2018), https://
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8 M.A. Bek et al. / Ain Shams Engineering Journal xxx (2018) xxx–xxx

2015

1998

1990

Fig. 10. Thermal map for Dar El Salam & Maadi 1990, 1998, 2015.

study is illustrated in Figs. 11 and 12. The figures concluded that

the temperature in unplanned areas increased with higher rate
than the planned areas. In the early nineties the temperature dif-
Dar el salaam
ference was only 2 °C, however by the end of the 2015 the differ-
ence became 6 °C. Perhaps this may raise the need to conduct an
integral social-environmental study to investigate the link
between the increases of crimes with the thermal comfort as
Maadi
indicator.

9. Conclusions
20 25 30 35 40 45
The planning and forms of construction have a large impact on
2015 1998 1990 the thermal behavior. It is evident that random urban growth of
cities significantly affects the temperature, which is trailed by ther-
Fig.11. Colum view for Dar El Salam & Maadi lemerature1990, 1998, 2015. mal image and the increase of temperature of indiscriminate
urbanization. The accumulation of such type of growth and
increased urban density over the years causes further increase in
Maadi & Dar el salaam temperature temperature.
50 It is shown that green areas play an important role in changing
45 the thermal properties in various urban areas. This clearly
appeared in Maadi area which retains green spaces by about 50%
40 of its area. This emphasizes the need to provide green spaces and
35 open spaces within urban areas to mitigate the urban heat island
phenomenon.
30
The form of road networks and the proportion of the street sec-
25 tor also have an effect on the thermal behavior of urban areas,
20 where narrow streets are working to maintain temperature and
harmful gases. This leads to increasing the urban heat island phe-
15 nomenon, especially in areas where sources of pollution and harm-
10 ful emissions are available. It is clear that the absence of necessary
1990 1998 2015 laws and legislations for organizing urban areas has bad impact in
Maadi Dar el salaam the thermal properties of these areas, and thus the thermal perfor-
mance and how it affects the necessary requirements of human
Fig. 12. Curve view for Dar El Salam & Maadi temperature1990, 1998, 2015. thermal comfort and air quality.

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 M.A. Bek et al. / Ain Shams Engineering Journal xxx (2018) xxx–xxx 9

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Increasing the community awareness about the problem of
informal urban growth and the impact of absence of proper plan-
ning (where using overlap and narrow tracks) on the urbanization Dr. Mohamed Ali Bek: Mohamed obtained his PhD in
temperature and the quality of the air, which significantly affects Environmental Engineering from the University of
the quality of life. Nottingham, UK. His PhD research focused on develop-
ing a field validated numerical model to investigate the
water hydrodynamic of lake El-Manzala, Egypt.
Acknowledgment Mohamed is interested in the development and appli-
cation of computational models to provide an improved
Authors would like to represent their gratitude for the National understanding of the fundamental processes that cause
Remote Sensing and Space Science authority for supplying the real world environmental engineering problems, and
which may assist in the design of sustainable solutions.
satellite images.
The focus of his current and recent research studies is
the modelling of water hydrodynamics lakes. In addi-
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Please cite this article in press as: Bek MA et al. The effect of unplanned growth of urban areas on heat island phenomena. Ain Shams Eng J (2018), https://
doi.org/10.1016/j.asej.2017.11.001
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