Review and Critical Analysis of International UHI Studies

Akbari in his 2005 paper on the potentials of urban heat island mitigation discussed the various
benefits associated with the implementation of mitigation measures such as reflective surfaces for
roofs and pavements and urban vegetation planting. He studied various papers by Rosenfeld and
Taha that modeled mitigation strategies and measured the resulting energy savings. He
discussed:
� A cool roof study by Taha which recorded 10‐20% smog reductions as a result of raising the
albedo of all roofs and roads in an urbanized area;
� A cool pavements study by Rosenfeld that found that by raising the albedo for 25% of the
city studied resulted in a 12% decrease in ozone exceedance over the California Air
Standard, of the 12%, 21% was attributed to pavements;
� A study on street trees and vegetation by Rosenfeld which simulated the impacts of a mass
tree planting program (11 million trees) in the LA Basin, Rosenfeld calculated total energy
savings of $270m made up from direct and indirect energy savings and smog benefits [070].
The papers listed below describe similar experiments, but generally papers seem to simply look
at the UHI impact on air quality & CO2, climate, trees and vegetation and ecosystem planning
regardless of mitigation activities.
It is evident, given the studies referenced below, that much of the focus centers on evaluating the
UHI environmental implications in terms of understanding their impact upon air quality.
Subject Papers
Air Quality &
CO2 Emissions
012, 013, 014, 048, 049, 050, 051, 059, 063, 064, 070, 080, 093, 104, 108, 112,
139, 141
Climatic Factors 005, 024, 027, 038, 061, 106, 115
Trees and Vegetation 003, 020, 070
Ecosystem Planning 008
Review and Critical Analysis of International UHI Studies
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