June 9, 2019
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Article

Assessing population vulnerability towards summer energy poverty: Case studies of Madrid and London

Publicated to: Energy And Buildings. 190 132-143 - 2019-05-01 190(), DOI: 10.1016/j.enbuild.2019.02.024

Authors:

Sanchez-Guevara, Carmen; Nunez Peiro, Miguel; Taylor, Jonathon; Mavrogianni, Anna; Neila Gonzalez, Javier
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Affiliations

Univ Politecn Madrid, Sch Architecture ETSAM, Avda Juan de Herrera 4, E-28040 Madrid, Spain - Author

Abstract

Climate change is expected to increase the frequency and duration of hot weather and its associated adverse health effects. In dense urban areas, these phenomena will be exacerbated by the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect and indoor overheating. This paper assesses population exposure and vulnerability to high summer temperatures by exploring the geospatial connection between the UHI, housing energy efficiency and overheating risk, and social vulnerability indicators, such as income and the elderly population. Focusing on Madrid and London, two European cities with strong UHIs but contrasting drivers of indoor heat risk, the spatial distribution of selected indicators were analysed by means of Geographical Information Systems, and areas with the highest vulnerability towards summer energy poverty were identified. It was found that while 'hot and vulnerable' areas are present in both Madrid and London, there are significant differences in climate, socioeconomic distribution and housing between the two cities. In warmer climates such as Madrid, energy poverty traditionally defined by wintertime heating-requires its definition to be broadened to include summertime cooling needs; in the context of climate change and urban warming trends, this may soon also be the case in northern cities such as London. (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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Keywords

Climate-changeCooling energy demandDaily mortalityElderlyEnergy povertyEnglandExtreme temperaturesFuel povertyHealthHeat vulnerabilityImpactLondonLow incomeMadridSpainThermal habitability conditionsUrban heat islandUrban heat-islandWave

Quality index

Bibliometric impact. Analysis of the contribution and dissemination channel

The work has been published in the journal Energy And Buildings due to its progression and the good impact it has achieved in recent years, according to the agency WoS (JCR), it has become a reference in its field. In the year of publication of the work, 2019, it was in position 5/134, thus managing to position itself as a Q1 (Primer Cuartil), in the category Engineering, Civil. Notably, the journal is positioned above the 90th percentile.

From a relative perspective, and based on the normalized impact indicator calculated from World Citations provided by WoS (ESI, Clarivate), it yields a value for the citation normalization relative to the expected citation rate of: 4.6. This indicates that, compared to works in the same discipline and in the same year of publication, it ranks as a work cited above average. (source consulted: ESI Nov 13, 2025)

This information is reinforced by other indicators of the same type, which, although dynamic over time and dependent on the set of average global citations at the time of their calculation, consistently position the work at some point among the top 50% most cited in its field:

  • Weighted Average of Normalized Impact by the Scopus agency: 4.58 (source consulted: FECYT Mar 2025)

Specifically, and according to different indexing agencies, this work has accumulated citations as of 2025-12-21, the following number of citations:

  • WoS: 128
  • Scopus: 140
  • Google Scholar: 173
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Impact and social visibility

From the perspective of influence or social adoption, and based on metrics associated with mentions and interactions provided by agencies specializing in calculating the so-called "Alternative or Social Metrics," we can highlight as of 2025-12-21:

  • The use, from an academic perspective evidenced by the Altmetric agency indicator referring to aggregations made by the personal bibliographic manager Mendeley, gives us a total of: 337.
  • The use of this contribution in bookmarks, code forks, additions to favorite lists for recurrent reading, as well as general views, indicates that someone is using the publication as a basis for their current work. This may be a notable indicator of future more formal and academic citations. This claim is supported by the result of the "Capture" indicator, which yields a total of: 343 (PlumX).

With a more dissemination-oriented intent and targeting more general audiences, we can observe other more global scores such as:

  • The Total Score from Altmetric: 43.
  • The number of mentions on the social network X (formerly Twitter): 25 (Altmetric).
  • The number of mentions in news outlets: 2 (Altmetric).

It is essential to present evidence supporting full alignment with institutional principles and guidelines on Open Science and the Conservation and Dissemination of Intellectual Heritage. A clear example of this is:

  • The work has been submitted to a journal whose editorial policy allows open Open Access publication.
  • Assignment of a Handle/URN as an identifier within the deposit in the Institutional Repository: https://oa.upm.es/55644/

As a result of the publication of the work in the institutional repository, statistical usage data has been obtained that reflects its impact. In terms of dissemination, we can state that, as of

  • Views: 606
  • Downloads: 1,368
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Leadership analysis of institutional authors

There is a significant leadership presence as some of the institution’s authors appear as the first or last signer, detailed as follows: First Author (SANCHEZ-GUEVARA SANCHEZ, M. DEL CARMEN) and Last Author (NEILA GONZALEZ, FCO. JAVIER).

the author responsible for correspondence tasks has been SANCHEZ-GUEVARA SANCHEZ, M. DEL CARMEN.

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Awards linked to the item

This research was partly funded by the MODIFICA research project (BIA2013-41732-R) and the HABITA Excellence Network (BIA2016-81749-REDT), both funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, an FPU research grant (FPU15/05052) from the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport, the Spanish Meteorological Agency that provided weather data, Madrid Local Council that helped with the installation for the urban network, the LUCID project, an Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) grant (EP/E016375/1, EP/E016308/1, EP/E016448/1), the National Institute for Health Research Health Protection Research Unit (NIHR HPRU) in Environmental Change and Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in partnership with Public Health England (PHE), and in collaboration with the University of Exeter, University College London, and the Met Office. The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR, the Department of Health or Public Health England. Jonathon Taylor is funded by the Wellcome Trust 'Our Planet, Our Health' award Complex Urban Systems for Sustainability and Health (209387/Z/17/Z).
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