Urban Microclimates and Climate Adaptation: Rethinking Resilience in the Global South
This presentation took place on Tuesday 9th September 2025 with Tania Sharmin.
Abstract: As climate change accelerates, cities in the Global South face intensifying challenges linked to extreme heat, rapid urbanisation, and socio-economic vulnerability. This talk explores how urban planning and design can support climate resilience by addressing the complex interrelations between built form, microclimate, and human thermal experience. Drawing on empirical research from Dhaka, Ahmedabad, Cairo, and Jodhpur, the presentation highlights how urban geometry, materiality, cultural heritage, and social practices shape microclimatic conditions and thermal comfort. Findings from microclimate measurements and thermal comfort surveys reveal how variability in urban morphology—such as building height, street orientation, and plot diversity—can significantly influence heat exposure and perception, even within the same city. The talk also presents participatory and ethnographic investigations that expose the social dimensions of climate vulnerability, including how residents of low-income or marginalised communities navigate thermal discomfort, and how cultural infrastructures like historic stepwells can act as climate moderators and community assets. Using a mix of field data, simulations, and sociotechnical analysis, the presentation argues for a context-sensitive, interdisciplinary approach to urban planning and design—one that integrates environmental data, local knowledge, and cultural resilience to inform equitable and adaptive responses to climate change in the Global South.
Dr Tania Sharmin is a Senior Lecturer in Sustainable Environmental Design at the Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University. Her research focuses on the impacts of climate change on urban microclimates and human thermal comfort, particularly in high-density, low-income settings. She completed her PhD at the University of Cambridge, supported by the Schlumberger Foundation’s Faculty for the Future Award. Tania applies microclimate measurements, satellite remote sensing, CFD, and building energy modelling to examine how urban form affects heat exposure and how extreme heat events and the urban heat island effect impact vulnerable populations.
Tania currently leads the British Council ISPF project “Combating Urban Extreme Heat for Vulnerable Populations in Cairo”. Her previous work includes the AHRC-funded “H2O-STEP” project on historic stepwells in India and HEFCW ODA-funded research on heat exposure in Cairo. She has also led post-occupancy research in Ahmedabad funded by Research England and contributed to British Council and Newton Fund projects in Jordan, Egypt, and Malawi. Tania was a 2022–23 Fung Global Fellow at Princeton University and has served as a Co-Investigator on several UKRI-funded projects, including “Community Open Map Platform”, “SMART-Health-care”, and “Heat Resilient Reading”. Her interdisciplinary work promotes climate-responsive, health-oriented strategies for urban resilience.