Thesis supervisor: Zsuzsa Szalay
Location of studies (in Hungarian): BME Építőanyagok és Magasépítés Tanszék Abbreviation of location of studies: BMEEM
Description of the research topic:
The duration and frequency of summer heatwaves have substantially increased recently, and the trend is likely to continue according to the forecasts of climate change models. A clear correlation can be shown between the rise in outside temperature and the risk of mortality. For prevention and preparation, it is important to develop risk assessment models connected to heat wave hazards.
Risk depends on the probability of the occurrence of the hazard and the resulting impact. It is proven that due to the urban heat island effect, the hazard connected to heat mortality is higher in cities (especially in large cities) than in other areas. The expected impact can be described by the vulnerability index, which is influenced by the local microclimate, the thermal quality of the building, the users’ habits, the age and health conditions of the inhabitants as well as their adaptation capacity to changing conditions. The risk of the catastrophe, the hazard and the impact can be depicted on maps with the help of Geographical Information System (GIS).
The goal of the doctoral research is the development of a GIS based risk assessment method and the illustration of the method on a case study of a city or district (e.g. Budapest or a representative district).
This is an interdisciplinary topic, where our approach is from the building level, hence knowledge in building physics and building energetics is a prerequisite.
Tasks:
- analysis of hazard risk assessment methods
- development of a method for heat wave mortality assessment
- defining a building typology for summer overheating
- analysis of the urban fabric from the point of view of building stock and microclimate
- dynamic building energy simulation of building types
- GIS analysis of the urban heat island effect
- analysis of the effect of microclimate
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