Morphological Indices as Urban Planning Tools in Northeastern Brazil

Ivanize Silva, Rafael Santos, António Lopes and Virgínia Araújo
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Ivanize Silva: Postgraduate Program in Architecture and Urbanism, UFRN—Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, Natal 59064-741, Brazil
Rafael Santos: CNPq—Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development, Ministry of Education, Brasília DF 71605-001, Brazil
António Lopes: IGOT—Institute of Geography and Spatial Planning/Center for Geographical Studies, Universidade de Lisboa, Ed. IGOT, Rua Branca Edmée Marques, Lisboa 1600-276, Portugal
Virgínia Araújo: Postgraduate Program in Architecture and Urbanism, UFRN—Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, Natal 59064-741, Brazil

Sustainability, 2018, vol. 10, issue 12, 1-18

Abstract: The purpose of this article is to analyze urban form through the mapping of morphological indices, namely impervious surface fraction, building density, verticality, height/width ratio, roughness length, and porosity, to support urban planning in the city of João Pessoa, PB, in northeastern Brazil. The application of this study identifies and calculates such significant indices for the city’s urban space from a Geographic Information System (GIS) model. The spatial indices play notable roles in climate at different scales, developing guidelines to maximize environmental quality, promote improvements to thermal comfort, minimize the urban heat island in the city of João Pessoa, and provide relevant data (considering microclimate aspects), guiding decisions related to the planning process.

Keywords: morphological indices; urban climate; planning process (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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