Climate change causes a critical increase of temperature and frequency of heat waves, whose impact is particularly sensitive within the urban environment. Here, the loss of natural areas, beside morphological and thermal properties, makes urban temperature to be significantly higher compared to peri-urban and rural areas. This phenomenon is commonly known as urban heat island (UHI). Because green infrastructure provides an effective strategy for reducing the UHI effect, we explore the feasibility of remotely sensed data and statistical modelling for assessing the effectiveness of green measures. We simulated how implementing green roofs over the city of Milan could affect temperature. Geographically weighted regression has been used to model the correlation among satellite-derived vegetation map and near-surface air temperature.
ABSTRACT:In the recent epoch, there has been considerable debate about the urban development along the European Mediterranean area, also undertaken by the European Authorities, and in particular regarding the role of spatial planning in order to improve sustainable trends of land use. Great transformations along the Spanish Mediterranean coast have generated considerable changes in the traditional structure of the landscape, far from the typical model of Mediterranean cities, and the rapidity of these modern dynamics has been a significant impact on the spatial patterns, also associated with the expansion of urban connections through the whole territory. The increase of large peri-urban areas, sprawled on the territory, and caused by uncontrolled, uncoordinated and unplanned growth, inevitably has brought the cancellation of clearly identifiable boundaries between the city and the rural areas. Spatial analysis, within quantitative geography and linked to the emerging field of regional science, represents a synthesis of urban and regional economics that is consistent with the complex sciences which dominate the simulation of urban form and functions. Most urban models deal with the city in terms of the location of its economic and demographic activities, but there is also a move to link such models to urban morphologies (Batty 2008). According with these concepts, the investigation, also supported by the use of technologies such as remote sensing and GIS, aims to complement the spatial analysis of regional development dynamics by classifying urban structures and quantifying some of main characteristics based on morphological features.
In the last few decades, urban sprawl refers to the outgrowth of urban areas caused by uncontrolled, uncoordinated and unplanned growth. The rapidity of urban dynamics has a significant impact on the spatial patterns associated with the growth and expansion of Spanish metropolitan areas. The increase of large peri-urban areas, in the last decades, sprawled on the territory, inevitably has brought the cancellation of a clearly identifiable boundary between city and rural area. In Mediterranean countries, the cultural landscapes created and maintained by traditional primary activities are rapidly becoming degraded due to abandoned land and villages, intensification of agricultural activities, and urban sprawl .
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