The Amsterwarm project investigates the urban heat island of Amsterdam, the vulnerability of its population, the energy efficiency of its buildings and landuse. A novel mapping approach provides insights into the questions of what causes the urban heat island and who will be affected by it. Landuse does affect the surface temperature. The difference between the areas in the city with the least and the greatest impervious surface coverage accounts for an average land surface temperature difference of 11.6℃ per hectare. The study demonstrates furthermore that the vulnerability of people and buildings to the urban heat island effect is a local condition in which the energy efficiency of buildings, quality of life and demographic factors should all be considered in an approach that is sensitive to place. Practical application: The typological maps will allow local authorities to prioritise adaptive actions in urban planning in response to the urban heat island, an emerging climate-related challenge that has a significant impact on the comfort and health of its citizens and on the (future) energy use required for cooling buildings. Raising the albedo in those areas of the city that are dominated by impervious surface cover seems an effective adaptation strategy, suitable to a city such as Amsterdam that no longer builds on green field sites but only builds as possible within the envelope of the existing city. Improving the quality of life in neighbourhoods and the energy efficiency/climate proofing of the building stock could also be prioritised in the identified neighbourhoods.

The world is increasingly concerned with sustainability issues. Climate change is not the least of these concerns. The complexity of these issues is such that data and information management form an important means of making the right decisions. Nowadays, however, the sheer quantity of data is overwhelming; large quantities of data demand means of representation that are comprehensible and effective. The above dilemma poses questions as to how one incorporates unknown climatologic parameters, such as urban heat, in future urban planning processes, and how one ensures the proposals are specific enough to actually adapt cities to climate change and flexible enough to ensure the proposed measures are combinable and compatible with other urban planning priorities. Conventional urban planning processes and mapping strategies are not adapted to this new environmental, technological and social context. In order come up with more appropriate urban planning strategies, in its first section this paper analyzes the role of the urban planner, reviews the wide variety of parameters that are starting to be integrated into the urban planners practice, and considers the parameters (mainly land surface temperature, albedo, vegetation, and imperviousness) and tools needed for the assessment of the UHI (satellite imagery and GIS). The second part of the study analyzes the potential of four catalyzing mapping categories to integrate urban heat into spatial planning processes: drift, layering, game-board, and rhizome.