Evaluating Urban Greening Scenarios on Urban Heat Islands Effects

Abstract

An Urban Heat Islands (UHI) are one of the most common phenomena of the 21st century. Climate change, and the associated rising trend of urban temperature is exaggerating the creation and extension of urban heat islands (UHI). This paper investigates various urban greening scenarios in the line with developing the resilient Sydney strategical document. Two different cooling street strategies are investigated in this research including high reflective pavement and green canopy cover. ENVI-Met software has been applied for simulating and quantifying microclimate processes at the urban scale before and after introducing urban greening scenarios. The results of this study show that applying the light-coloured pavement instead of asphalt surface will decrease surface temperature by up to 20°C. Planting short to medium height trees in the side walks will decrease the air temperature by up to 3°C and surface temperature by up to 11°C.