Review and Critical Analysis of International UHI Studies

and hydrological models that simulate the surface temperatures and runoff respectively in
relation to the green infrastructure under the current and future climate scenarios. This
provides significant steps forward as it quantities the potential of green infrastructure to
moderate climate change impacts (also some common UHI impacts) in a rigorous manner
and can facilitate the planning for future expansions of green space in urban environments
in meeting UHI mitigation criteria [010];
� The Taiwanese study provides a preliminary analysis on the local cool‐island intensity of
Taipei city parks. Given that urban green‐spaces broadly relieve the urban heat island in
certain climates it examines what design factors influence the performance of the urban
green parks and looks at the relative effects of several parks [006];
� The Israeli study examines vegetation as a climatic component in the design of an urban
street. This uses an empirically developed model to predict the cooling effect of urban
green areas with trees. The findings in this study (i.e. background effect, tree shading
coverage, site specific effects, effect of trees in street, cooling effect on the surroundings)
permit the development of tools for incorporating the climatic effects of green areas in
urban design [109]; and
� A Japanese study considers how energy consumption in buildings can be reduced through
efficiency measures such as improvements to heating, ventilation and air conditioning as
well as considering window types and building block characteristics through modeling
and simulations. The results showed a relationship between cooling requirement, weather
data and building arrangement. The model calculates the most suitable building height for
the air temperature in the area [202].
It is important that designers and planners are equipped with the appropriate tools and rules of
thumb as to what kind of urban design characteristics best mitigate the undesirable effects on the
micro and city level [006]. The Japanese study highlights that their approach is beginning to shift
away from reliance on individual/isolated measures to mitigate the UHI – there is now a move
towards improved infrastructure of the urban areas (e.g. roads, green space, rivers, etc) and a
desire to influence urban planning in mass deployment measures such as the development of
wind paths (for city scale ventilation) [047].
A number of papers used modeling and simulation to determine the most appropriate planning
approach for their cities, these papers were as follows:
� A useful design tool is presented in a US paper that can be applied in the US in
collaboration with the city of Phoenix water resources department [056]. This study uses a
simple model of heat fluxes in urban areas – Local Scale Urban Meteorological
Parameterization Scheme (LUMPS) which examines the variation in temperature and
evaporation at the ‘census tract scale in 10 tracts of the urban core’. In this study it uses
LUMPS to evaluate the effectiveness of various planning strategies. The limitation of
LUMPS and other urban heat flux models (at all scales) is that this tool at its respective
scale may not be used to define mass solutions for several areas – it does however present
planners the option to minimize resource use while maximizing social, economic and
environmental goals;
� A Chinese paper declared urban planning to be one of the main causes of UHI. The study
used remote sensing technology to analyze UHI at a community scale to establish an urban
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