Evaluating the Cooling Potential of Urban Green Spaces to Tackle Urban Climate Change in Lisbon

Cláudia Reis and António Lopes
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Cláudia Reis: Universidade de Lisboa, Institute of Geography and Spatial Planning (IGOT), Centre of Geographical Studies, Rua Branca Edmée Marques, Cidade Universitária, 1600-276 Lisboa, Portugal
António Lopes: Universidade de Lisboa, Institute of Geography and Spatial Planning (IGOT), Centre of Geographical Studies, Rua Branca Edmée Marques, Cidade Universitária, 1600-276 Lisboa, Portugal

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 9, 1-17

Abstract: The increase and optimization of urban vegetation has been considered an effective mitigation measure of an urban heat island (UHI), with positive effects on human thermal comfort. In this study, the cooling potential of all green spaces in Lisbon was estimated. For that, several mobile measurements of air temperature data were made in a single park (Gulbenkian’s Garden). These measurements were used for the interpolation of air temperature. Furthermore, urban biomass was estimated using remote sensing products, namely Landsat satellite images. Ultimately, a linear regression model was built from the relation between vegetation density and air temperature. Results regarding the estimation of biomass (AGB) in the city of Lisbon were higher in winter than in summer. The urban green spaces cooling potential model showed that for every decrease of 1 °C in air temperature between a measuring point and a reference station we need to increase the area covered by vegetation by 50 m 2 (planar measure). This methodology can be applied in other urban areas for the quantification of the cooling effect provided by vegetation in order to improve urban climate thermal conditions and human well-being and, consequently, to mitigate some consequences of future climate change.

Keywords: Urban Heat Island (UHI); Cooling Park Effect; vegetation cooling potential; Above Ground Biomass (AGB); Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI); Lisbon (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

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