Urban climate resilience through green infrastructure and meteorological modeling

Urban climatology and urban meteorology examine how cities modify atmospheric processes and how these interactions shape exposure to climate hazards. Rapid urbanization, expanding impervious surfaces, and climate change are increasing the frequency and severity of outdoor urban heatwaves, intense precipitation, stagnant-air episodes, and pollution events. Recent advances in high-resolution meteorological modeling, remote sensing, urban sensor networks, and machine learning have improved the representation and prediction of neighborhood- and city-scale atmospheric processes. Evidence also indicates that green infrastructure including urban forests, parks, green corridors, urban green belts, blue-green roofs, and water-sensitive landscapes can reduce heat exposure, manage stormwater, and affect the dispersion and transformation of outdoor pollutants. However, reported benefits vary according to urban morphology, vegetation characteristics, water availability, background climate, and synoptic conditions. Important gaps remain in connecting meteorological forecasts with the design and long-term evaluation of green infrastructure, quantifying its effects during compound heat and pollution events, and assessing how benefits and risks are distributed across urban communities. A stronger integration of atmospheric science, climate projections, urban design, and governance is therefore needed to support effective and equitable outdoor climate adaptation.This Research Topic aims to advance understanding of how green infrastructure, urban form, and atmospheric processes interact to improve outdoor urban climate resilience. It will examine how observations, high-resolution numerical models, climate projections, remote sensing, and data-driven methods can be combined to quantify and predict urban heat, precipitation, pollutant dispersion, and compound climate–pollution risks at city and neighborhood scales. The Research Topic will also assess the effectiveness, limitations, maintenance requirements, and policy implications of nature-based and complementary technological interventions. Key questions include how different green infrastructure configurations perform under contrasting meteorological conditions; whether they reduce or redistribute outdoor pollutants; how their effectiveness may change under future climate scenarios; and how climatological evidence can support inclusive urban planning and governance. Studies focused primarily on indoor air quality, building ventilation, indoor exposure, or occupant-level exposomes are outside the primary scope unless they explicitly investigate interactions with outdoor urban climate processes.To gather further insights into outdoor urban climate resilience, this Research Topic will focus on city-, neighborhood-, and peri-urban-scale interactions among meteorology, climate extremes, atmospheric pollution, urban form, and green infrastructure. Contributions may use observational, experimental, computational, remote-sensing, or interdisciplinary approaches across diverse climatic, geographic, and socioeconomic contexts. We welcome articles addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:• High-resolution modeling of urban heat islands and the cooling performance of parks, urban forests, green corridors, green belts, and blue-green roofs.• Meteorological controls on outdoor pollutant dispersion, accumulation, dilution, and transformation.• Interactions between green infrastructure, urban morphology, and PM, NOx, VOCs, ozone, and secondary pollutant formation.• Climate-change projections and risk assessments for urban heatwaves, heavy precipitation, stagnant-air episodes, and compound heat–pollution events.• Observational, remote-sensing, and sensor-network approaches for monitoring outdoor urban climate and air pollution.• Machine-learning and artificial-intelligence applications in forecasting city-scale climate–pollution interactions.• Water availability, vegetation characteristics, seasonality, maintenance, and potential trade-offs affecting green infrastructure performance.• Evidence-based nature-based, technological, and behavioral strategies for outdoor urban climate adaptation.• Governance mechanisms, planning frameworks, and policy instruments for integrating meteorological evidence into green urban development.• Equity, environmental justice, and social sustainability in the distribution and implementation of urban climate-resilience interventions.• Interactions between outdoor urban climate conditions and adjacent or connected indoor environments, where these are relevant to city-scale climate adaptation rather than indoor exposome research.Appendix: The Research Topic welcomes original research articles, comprehensive reviews, methodological papers, and high-impact case studies addressing outdoor urban climate resilience, green infrastructure, meteorological modeling, and atmospheric pollution. Topic editors: Manas Pant, Pradeep Kumar, Bhupendra P. Singh, Thota Sivasankar Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/83980/urban-climate-resilience-through-green-infrastructure-and-meteorological-modeling