Tree species richness and diversity predicts the magnitude of urban heat island mitigation effects of greenspaces

Wang, Xinjun; Dallimer, Martin; Scott, Catherine E.; Shi, Weiting; Gao, Jixi

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.145211

Cited by 99 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 80 publications

(107 reference statements)

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“…Studies show that biodiversity is perceived and valued by residents [38]. In connection with this, there are not only opportunities for people to perceive nature and an improvement in well-being, but also improve climate change adaptation in urban environments [39]. A contribution to climate change mitigation can be made if carbon sequestration takes place through NBS.…”

Section: Additional Factors Influencing the Planning Of Green And Blu...mentioning

confidence: 99%

New Green Infrastructure for European Cities: Multiple Ways for Improvement and Climate Change Adaptation

Wanner

Pröbstl‐Haider

Feilhammer

2022

WIT Transactions on Ecology and the Environment

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The establishment and improvement of nature-based solutions (NBS) to reduce impacts by climate change and improve air quality are a challenging task for urban planning and management. Despite the great interest and willingness to improve the situation, many concerns and questions arise when planning details for the implementation of NBS and green infrastructure. For example, to what extent can improvements be achieved with regard to microdust? Which green infrastructure brings the greatest particulate reduction or greatest temperature reductions for hot summer days? This paper investigates which NBS can be applied in European cities for which purpose based on current scientific literature. Based on an extended literature review the paper gives an overview and illustrates to what extent implemented NBS currently may contribute to tackling challenges regarding climate change. Against this background the paper gives recommendations for urban planning and development under conditions of climate change.

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Section: Additional Factors Influencing the Planning Of Green And Blu...mentioning

confidence: 99%

New Green Infrastructure for European Cities: Multiple Ways for Improvement and Climate Change Adaptation

Wanner

Pröbstl‐Haider

Feilhammer

2022

WIT Transactions on Ecology and the Environment

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“…The results of our study, associating well-aggregated patches of trees to the coldest land cover patches, is consistent with the results obtained for Baltimore. Moreover, the tree community structure including not only tree density and canopy dimensions but also species diversity were found to influence the cooling capacity of urban greenspaces (Wang et al 2021). Another consideration that is important for greenspace planning is that optimisation of spatial arrangement for day-time heat mitigation may diminish cooling at night, as shown in Zhang et al (2017), through blocking part of the sky view by trees and consequent reduction in long-wave radiative cooling.…”

Section: Relationships Between Lst and Spatial Configuration Descriptorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Whilst at the small size of the patch neighbourhood (10 m buffer zone) considered here urban form was likely relatively homogenous, our analysis could inform compilation of a dataset simultaneously describing several properties of land cover patches and their neighbours in a qualitative manner, allowing for answering more specific questions relevant to the design of urban form. The pool of spatial configuration descriptors used in our study could be expanded by incorporation of information regarding community structure and species diversity of tree patches, which were shown to be important (Wang et al 2021) for cooling as well as descriptors of heat storage capacity of construction materials that can be approximated by albedo (Phelan et al 2015).…”

Section: Relationships Between Lst and Spatial Configuration Descriptorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The importance of spatial configuration of neighbouring land cover for explanation of surface temperature of individual patches in urban landscapes

2021

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Context Relationships between spatial configuration of urban form and land surface temperature (LST) in the excess heat mitigation context are studied over larger tracts of land not allowing for micro-scale recommendations to urban design. Objectives To identify spatial configuration descriptors (SCDs) of urban form and the size of zone of influence conducive to the formation of the coldest and hottest land cover (LC) patches of different types (buildings, grass, paved and trees) from 2 m resolution LC and 2 and 100 m resolution LST maps at two time-steps in the summer. Methods Random Forest regression models were deployed to explain the LST of individual LC patches of different types based on SCDs of core LC patches and patches in their neighbourhoods. ANOVA was used to determine significantly different values of the most important SCDs associated with the coldest and hottest LC patches, and analysis of quartiles informed specification of their ranges. Results Urban form in the immediate neighbourhood to the core LC patches had a strong influence on their LST. Low elevation, high proximity to water, and high aggregation of trees, being important to the formation of the coldest patches of all types. High resolution of LST contributed to a higher accuracy of results. Elevation and proximity to water gained in importance as summer progressed. Conclusions Spatial configuration of urban form in the nearest proximity to individual LC patches and the use of fine resolution LST data are essential for issuing heat mitigation recommendations to urban planners relevant to micro-scales.

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“…Greenness reduces the likelihood of flooding, and provides a number of environmental health benefits by offering additional space for physical activity, which reduces morbidity and mortality associated with obesity and other chronic diseases [13]. In addition that green space provides shade to help reduce the effects of heat-induced illnesses (heat stroke, exhaustion) [14].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reported evidence of greenness co-benefits on health, climate change mitigation, and adaptation: a systematic review of the literature

Kınay¹,

Ji²

2022

Environ. Res.: Climate

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This systematic review aims to appraise the quality of evidence on greenness co-benefits of climate change and health. Although there is evidence of the co-benefits of greenness on climate change and health, the research is of poor quality when it comes to addressing the connections and identifying mediators of greenness and climate change mitigation associations. As a result, the evaluation sought to identify areas where there was little or no evidence in order to guide future research. Current published studies mainly covered six health outcome categories (birth outcomes, physical activity, mental wellbeing, obesity, mortality, and cognitive function). For adaptation, greenness and climate change associated studies included (1) cooling down effect and urban heat island impact, (2) air quality improvement, and (3) flood mitigation. For each outcome, we performed a systematic search of publications on Web of Science, PubMed, Google Scholar, and Science Direct databases from 2000 to July 2021. After retrieving records in which full papers were assessed and non-English articles were excluded, a total of 173 articles, including research articles and reviews, were chosen. To ascertain the strength of evidence, all interventions were assessed using the GRADE approach. The quality of evidence ranged from moderate to high for most categories of health outcomes (birth outcomes, mental wellbeing, mortality). GRADE assessment provided low-quality evidence for studies on air quality, flood mitigation, physical activity, and obesity due to poor study design (observational or limited data) and high heterogeneity (some data provided variability), and the review concluded that there is insufficient evidence on firm recommendations for public health interventions. Due to a huge number of low quality evidence and several areas of overlapping study, this evaluation recognized the co-benefits of greenness on climate change and health as an understudied field and hence as a research gap. The evidentiary foundation for greenness-climate change mitigation links, on the other hand, was generally weak. Future research on climate change greenness co-benefit interventions should pay special attention to flood prevention, air quality interactions, and health effects including physical activity and obesity.

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Tree species richness and diversity predicts the magnitude of urban heat island mitigation effects of greenspaces

Cited by 99 publications

References 80 publications

New Green Infrastructure for European Cities: Multiple Ways for Improvement and Climate Change Adaptation

New Green Infrastructure for European Cities: Multiple Ways for Improvement and Climate Change Adaptation

The importance of spatial configuration of neighbouring land cover for explanation of surface temperature of individual patches in urban landscapes

Reported evidence of greenness co-benefits on health, climate change mitigation, and adaptation: a systematic review of the literature

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