scholarly journals Statistical Review of Quality Parameters of Blue-Green Infrastructure Elements Important in Mitigating the Effect of the Urban Heat Island in the Temperate Climate (C) Zone

Author(s):  
Patryk Antoszewski ◽  
Dariusz Świerk ◽  
Michał Krzyżaniak

Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect relates to the occurrence of a positive heat balance, compared to suburban and extra-urban areas in a high degree of urbanized cities. It is necessary to develop effective UHI prevention and mitigation strategies, one of which is blue-green infrastructure (BGI). Most research work comparing impact of BGI parameters on UHI mitigation is based on data measured in different climate zones. This makes the implication of nature-based solutions difficult in cities with different climate zones due to the differences in the vegetation time of plants. The aim of our research was to select the most statistically significant quality parameters of BGI elements in terms of preventing UHI. The normative four-step data delimitation procedure in systematic reviews related to UHI literature was used, and temperate climate (C) zone was determined as the UHI crisis area. As a result of delimitation, 173 publications qualified for literature review were obtained (488 rejected). We prepared a detailed literature data analysis and the CVA model—a canonical variation of Fisher’s linear discriminant analysis (LDA). Our research has indicated that the BGI object parameters are essential for UHI mitigation, which are the following: area of water objects and green areas, street greenery leaf size (LAI), green roofs hydration degree, and green walls location. Data obtained from the statistical analysis will be used to create the dynamic BGI modeling algorithm, which is the main goal of the series of articles in the future.

Water ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 3577
Author(s):  
Fatma Balany ◽  
Anne WM Ng ◽  
Nitin Muttil ◽  
Shobha Muthukumaran ◽  
Man Sing Wong

Research on urban heat mitigation has been growing in recent years with many of the studies focusing on green infrastructure (GI) as a strategy to mitigate the adverse effects of an urban heat island (UHI). This paper aims at presenting a review of the range of findings from GI research for urban heat mitigation through a review of scientific articles published during the years 2009–2020. This research includes a review of the different types of GI and its contribution for urban heat mitigation and human thermal comfort. In addition to analysing different mitigation strategies, numerical simulation tools that are commonly used are also reviewed. It is seen that ENVI-met is one of the modelling tools that is considered as a reliable to simulate different mitigation strategies and hence has been widely used in the recent past. Considering its popularity in urban microclimate studies, this article also provides a review of ENVI-met simulation results that were reported in the reviewed papers. It was observed that the majority of the research was conducted on a limited spatial scale and focused on temperature and human thermal comfort.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Bakul Budhiraja ◽  
Prasad Pathak ◽  
Girish Agarwal ◽  
Raja Sengupta

The urban heat island (UHI) effect is one of the prominent impacts of urbanization that affects human health and energy consumption. As the data is limited and inconsistent, UHI comparative studies between UHIUCL and UHISurf on the seasonal scale are limited. The use of only daytime summer imagery reporting “Inverted UHI” undermines the holistic view of the phenomenon. Therefore, this study analyses the seasonal patterns for UHISurf and UHIUCL in three climate zones (Delhi, Pune, and Montreal). The three cities experience a high traditional night-time UHIUCL (Delhi 7°C, Pune 6°C, Montreal 1.89°C). Landsat captures a prominent daytime UHISurf (15°C) in Montreal with temperate climate and daytime inverted UHISurf (-4°C) for Delhi in summer. Seasonally, the night-time UHI is prominent in summer and monsoon for Delhi, summer and spring for Pune, and summer for Montreal. Due to UHI effect, the heatwaves can be more intense in semi-arid and tropical cities than temperate cities.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (16) ◽  
pp. 8685
Author(s):  
Daniel Johnson ◽  
Judith Exl ◽  
Sylvie Geisendorf

Urban green infrastructure (UGI) within sustainable stormwater management provides numerous benefits to urban residents, including urban heat island (UHI) mitigation. Cost–benefit analyses (CBA) for UGI have been conducted at neighborhood level with a focus on stormwater management, but valuations of reductions in heat-related hospitalizations and mortality are lacking. These benefits create significant social value; the quantification thereof is essential for urban planning in providing a scientific foundation for the inclusion of UGI in UHI mitigation strategies. This study assesses the potential of three UGI scenarios developed for an urban neighborhood in Berlin, Germany. First, climate data analyses were conducted to determine the cooling effects of tree drains, facade greening, and green roofs. Second, a CBA was performed for each scenario to value UHI mitigation by estimating the damage costs avoided in reduced heat-related hospitalizations and fatalities, using the net present value (NPV) and benefit–cost ratio (BCR) as indicators of economic feasibility. The results indicate heat mitigation capabilities of all three UGI types, with tree drains achieving the strongest cooling effects. Regarding economic feasibility, all scenarios achieve positive NPVs and BCRs above one. The findings confirm the potential of stormwater management in mitigating UHI and generating substantial social value.


Climate ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 51
Author(s):  
Xueqin Li ◽  
Lindsay C. Stringer ◽  
Martin Dallimer

Due to the combination of climate change and the rapid growth in urban populations in Africa, many urban areas are encountering exacerbated urban heat island (UHI) effects. It is important to understand UHI effects in order to develop suitable adaptation and mitigation strategies. However, little work has been done in this regard in Africa. In this study, we compared surface UHI (SUHI) effects between cities located in different climate zones in East Africa, investigating how they change, both spatially and temporally. We quantified the annual daytime and night-time SUHI intensities in the five most populated cities in East Africa in 2003 and 2017, and investigated the links to urban area size. We consider the possible drivers of SUHI change and consider the implication for future development, highlighting the role of factors such as topography and building/construction materials. We suggest that UHI mitigation strategies targeting East African cities may benefit from more comprehensive analyses of blue and green infrastructure as this offers potential opportunities to enhance human comfort in areas where UHI effects are highest. However, this needs careful planning to avoid increasing associated issues such as disease risks linked to a changing climate.


Author(s):  
Fatma balany ◽  
A.W.M Ng ◽  
Nitin Muttil ◽  
Shobha Muthukumaran ◽  
Man Sing Wong

Research on urban heat mitigation has been growing in recent years with many of the studies focusing on green infrastructure (GI) as a strategy to mitigate the adverse effects of Urban Heat Island (UHI). This paper aims at presenting a review of the range of findings from GI research for urban heat mitigation through a review of scientific articles published during the years 2009-2019. This research includes a review of the different types of GI and its contribution for urban heat mitigation and human thermal comfort. In addition to analyzing different mitigation strategies, numerical simulation tools that are commonly used are also reviewed. It is seen that ENVI-met is one of the modelling tools that is considered as a reliable tool to simulate different mitigation strategies and hence has been widely used in the recent past. Considering its popularity in urban microclimate studies, this article also provides a review of ENVI-met simulation results that were reported in the reviewed papers. It was observed that the majority of the research was conducted on a limited spatial scale and focused on temperature and human thermal comfort.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 5918
Author(s):  
Giacomo Chiesa ◽  
Yingyue Li

Urban heat island and urban-driven climate variations are recognized issues and may considerably affect the local climatic potential of free-running technologies. Nevertheless, green design and bioclimatic early-design analyses are generally based on typical rural climate data, without including urban effects. This paper aims to define a simple approach to considering urban shapes and expected effects on local bioclimatic potential indicators to support early-design choices. Furthermore, the proposed approach is based on simplifying urban shapes to simplify analyses in early-design phases. The proposed approach was applied to a sample location (Turin, temperate climate) and five other climate conditions representative of Eurasian climates. The results show that the inclusion of the urban climate dimension considerably reduced rural HDD (heating degree-days) from 10% to 30% and increased CDD (cooling degree-days) from 70% to 95%. The results reveal the importance of including the urban climate dimension in early-design phases, such as building programming in which specific design actions are not yet defined, to support the correct definition of early-design bioclimatic analyses.


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