A systematic review of urban energy balance assessments

Urban energy partitioning is being reshaped by accelerating urbanization with direct repercussions for local climate, public health, and mitigation policies. To address the lack of an inquiry on studies of urban energy balance (UEB) assessments, we wrote a review covering the period 2004–2024. Following PRISMA-2020 guidelines, searches in databases of Web of Science and Scopus yielded 70 eligible studies; each site was classified into Local Climate Zones (LCZs 1–8). Research output is strongly clustered in China (12 cases) and the United States (11), in which urban central districts precede neighbourhoods as the most studied land classes. The Eddy Covariance leading experimental technique serves for measuring the turbulent fluxes, complemented by radiometry and footprint modelling. The Surface Urban Energy and Water Balance Scheme (SUEWS) and the Town Energy Balance (TEB), with more than 20 applications, provided the most simulation results among the main UEB models. Research hotspots centre on (i) the cooling capacity of the urban vegetation, (ii) the quantification of anthropogenic heat emissions and (iii) the influence of street canyon geometry on the Urban Heat Island (UHI) phenomenon. In the midst of a rapid yet uneven bloom of this research field, some possible directions were presented: (1) the adoption of community protocols for the energy-balance closure, (2) the creation of globally standardized datasets on anthropogenic heat emissions, (3) the stronger integration between in-situ observations and high-resolution remote sensing data, and (4) the enhanced interdisciplinary collaboration between UEB research and climate-responsive urban planning. • Energy balance studies are crucial for understanding urbanization's impacts. • The flux partitioning resents the anthropogenic heat and gas emissions. • Combining techniques as eddy covariance and digital datasets adds up in modelling. • Central topics concern vegetation cooling, human emissions, canyon thermal effects. • A climate-responsive urban planning should consider energy balance studies.