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Human Bioclimate and Thermal Stress in the Megacity of Dhaka, Bangladesh: Application and Evaluation of Thermophysiological Indices

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Health in Megacities and Urban Areas

Part of the book series: Contributions to Statistics ((CONTRIB.STAT.))

Abstract

Human bioclimate refers to the entirety of all climatological and meteorological parameters affecting the living organism. The relevance of climate and weather for human health was already recognized by Hippocrates (Hippocrates Reprint). Later, Alexander von Humboldt defined climate as changes of the atmosphere affecting the human organism, thus putting human bioclimatological aspects in focus (von Humboldt 2004) Energy released or absorbed by change of the aggregate state of water. Since then, numerous studies have been published focusing on the atmosphere-health relationship describing seasonal variations and non-linear relationships between multiple disease (e.g. cardio-respiratory, infectious) and temperature (Burkart and Endlicher 2009; Kunst et al. 1993; Braga et al. 2001; Braga et al. 2002; Basu and Samet 2002).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Commonly climate refers to the weather in some location averaged over some long period of time. Following this definition, climatological influences occur on a long-term scale and meteorological influences on a short-term scale. However, the direction and magnitude of short-term meteorological influences on human health depend on climate. Therefore, a strict distinction of the terms climate/climatological and weather/meteorological is often not possible or feasible. Particularly, in the realm of bioclimatic research this definition is not adhered to rigorously (e.g. climate definition given by Humboldt). In this article the terms climate and climatological comprise short-term and long-term influences.

  2. 2.

    Energy released or absorbed by change of the aggregate state of water.

  3. 3.

    For example: Three heat waves were observed in May over the 10-year data period with the following duration time: (a) 2 days (48 h), (b) 4 days (96 h) and (c) 3½ days (60 h). The number of occurring heat wave days was divided by the number of possible heat wave days: (2 + 4 + 3½)/310.

  4. 4.

    The energy amount needed to evaporate 1 g of water, increasing relative humidity of one cubic meter air about 2–3% is up to about 7 kJ. The same amount of energy would increase the sensible heat of one cubic meter air about 2 K. (Evaporation enthalpy, specific heat capacity and air mass per cubic meter are temperature dependent. The calculations are based on average values for approximately 30°C.)

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Acknowledgements

The authors are very grateful to the Bangladesh Meteorological Department for providing meteorological data. Furthermore, we would like to thank the German Research Foundation (DFG) for funding the Dhaka INNOVATE project within the priority programme 1233 “Megacities-Megachallenge – Informal Dynamics of Global Change”.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Climatological Section Unter den Linden 6, 10066, Berlin, Germany

    Katrin Burkart & Wilfried Endlicher

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  1. Katrin Burkart
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  2. Wilfried Endlicher
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Correspondence to Katrin Burkart .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Fak. Gesundheitswissenschaften, Universität Bielefeld, Universitätsstr. 25, Bielefeld, 33615, Germany

    Alexander Krämer

  2. , Department of Public Health Medicine, School of Public Health, Bielefeld Unive, Bielefeld, 33501, Germany

    Mobarak Hossain Khan

  3. , Institute of Geography, Cologne University, Albertus-Magnus-Platz, Cologne, 50923, Germany

    Frauke Kraas

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Burkart, K., Endlicher, W. (2011). Human Bioclimate and Thermal Stress in the Megacity of Dhaka, Bangladesh: Application and Evaluation of Thermophysiological Indices. In: Krämer, A., Khan, M., Kraas, F. (eds) Health in Megacities and Urban Areas. Contributions to Statistics. Physica, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7908-2733-0_10

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