Overview on urban climate and microclimate modeling tools and their role to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals

The role of the fourth Industrial Revolution enabling technologies is pivotal if the paradigms of data-driven, performance-based, and optimized design have to become standard practice. Urban climate and microclimate models are increasingly likely to support the design for adaptation, resilience, and mitigation of the heat island in cities. In this context, the objective of this chapter is to emphasize the role of urban climate and microclimate modeling tools to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals at the local level. To this, firstly the authors screened the Agenda 2030 official Targets and Indicators and the European Handbook for Voluntary Local Reviews’ indicators, highlighting how they deal with environmental quality, urban climate and microclimate issues. Interlinkages and possible trade-offs were identified among goals and targets, too. Secondly, a robust overview on the main software for climate modeling is provided. Tools were clustered, according to the domain of application, into scale, statistical, numerical, and dispersion/air quality models. Thus, the authors focused on numerical models, identified as proper tools for architects and planners to support urban and micro-urban scale design. A final matrix compares the most used numerical models at a glance, highlighting main features, fields of applications, environmental parameters simulated, and interoperability options.