Sponsor
This research was funded by the U.S. Forest Service’s National Urban and Community Forestry Challenge Grant (No. 17-DG-11132544-014), and the National Science Foundation’s Sustainable Research Network Grant (No. 1444755). n. Publication of this article in an open access journal was funded by the Portland State University Library’s Open Access Fund.
Published In
Atmosphere
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2019
Subjects
Urban ecology (Sociology), Urban climatology, Urban heat island -- Oregon --Portland
Abstract
Urban heat is a growing environmental concern in cities around the world. The urban heat island effect, combined with warming effects of climate change, is likely to cause an increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme heat events. Alterations to the physical, built environment are a viable option for mitigating urban heat, yet few studies provide systematic guidance to practitioners for adapting diverse land uses. In this study, we examine the use of green infrastructure treatments to evaluate changes in ambient temperatures across diverse land uses in the city of Portland, Oregon. We apply ENVI-met® microclimate modeling at the city-block scale specifically to determine what built environment characteristics are most associated with high temperatures, and the extent to which different physical designs reduce ambient temperature. The analysis included six green infrastructure interventions modeled across six different land-use types, and indicated the varying degrees to which approaches are effective. Results were inconsistent across landscapes, and showed that one mitigation solution alone would not significantly reduce extreme heat. These results can be used to develop targeted, climate- and landscape-specific cooling interventions for different land uses, which can help to inform and refine current guidance to achieve urban climate adaptation goals.
Locate the Document
DOI
10.3390/atmos10050282
Persistent Identifier
https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/28872
Citation Details
Makido, Y., Hellman, D., & Shandas, V. (2019). Nature-Based Designs to Mitigate Urban Heat: The Efficacy of Green Infrastructure Treatments in Portland, Oregon. Atmosphere, 10(5), 282.
Description
© 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).