13 MAY 2026 (WED) 15:05 - 15:35

The Reorganization of Urban Economic Vitality under Climate Stress

Miss PENG Chenchen  

( Supervisor: Prof Yuyu Zhou )

Abstract:

Urban economic vitality is increasingly exposed to climate stress. However, existing climate-economy research has largely focused on macroeconomic losses, regional impacts, or average effects based on simplified meteorological indicators. Less is known about how urban economic activity responds to climate stress in everyday settings, how such responses are mediated by the built environment, and how fine-grained economic activities are disrupted by and recover from extreme climate shocks. As climate stressors intensify, economic activity may become more uneven across time, sectors, and urban space.

Against this background, a progressive research framework is developed to examine how climate stressors reshape urban economic vitality. First, the behavioural response of urban economic activity to thermal stress is investigated, with attention to how temperature and humidity may affect adjustments in consumption behaviour. Second, the analysis is extended from conventional air-temperature exposure to human-scale heat exposure, where locally experienced thermal conditions are shaped by three-dimensional urban form, vegetation, and radiation environments. This perspective allows the spatial reorganization of economic vitality to be examined in relation to heterogeneous urban heat environments. Third, the framework is further extended to extreme-event contexts, where the focus shifts from immediate economic disruption to resilience processes, including impact intensity, recovery speed, spatial substitution, and longer-term adaptive capacity.

These studies seek to advance climate-economy research from aggregate impact assessment toward a more behavioural, spatially explicit, and policy-relevant understanding of urban adaptation. The expected findings can help identify vulnerable activities, thermally constrained economic spaces, and priority areas for heat-resilient urban design, mobility planning, commercial vitality support, and adaptation resource allocation.

Keywords: Climate stressors; Economic vitality; Consumption behaviour; Heat exposure; Built environment; Urban resilience