On 6 October 2026, the Earth Observation Research Cluster (EORC) welcomed Stephan J. Schmidt from the Department of City and Regional Planning at Cornell University for an EORC Talk on “Urban form and the heat island effect”.
Urban heat is becoming an increasingly important challenge for cities worldwide. In his talk, Stephan Schmidt provided fascinating insights into how the spatial structure and morphology of cities influence urban heat patterns. Drawing on satellite-derived land surface temperature, land-cover information, and spatial metrics, he presented research from Europe and Africa investigating the role of urban aggregation and fragmentation, land-use mixing, green-space configuration and polycentric urban development.
A particular highlight was the perspective on African cities, including recent work using remote sensing, machine learning and large-scale morphological indicators to investigate urban form across thousands of cities and to develop a morphology-based typology of African urban regions.
The talk was followed by an engaging discussion, providing an opportunity to exchange perspectives on remote sensing, urban morphology and the challenges of understanding and mitigating urban heat.
A big thank you to Stephan J. Schmidt for visiting the EORC and sharing his research with us, and to everyone who joined the talk and contributed to the discussion.
We are looking forward to continuing the exchange and to welcoming you again at one of our next EORC Talks.
