Fung Kwun Yip, Yang Zong-Liang, Martilli Alberto, Krayenhoff E Scott, Niyogi Dev
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Jackson School of Geosciences, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA.
Atmospheric Modelling Unit, Environmental Department, CIEMAT, 28040 Madrid, Spain.
PNAS Nexus. 2024 Aug 30;3(9):pgae360. doi: 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgae360. eCollection 2024 Sep.
We utilized city-scale simulations to quantitatively compare the diverse urban overheating mitigation strategies, specifically tied to social vulnerability and their cooling efficacies during heatwaves. We enhanced the Weather Research and Forecasting model to encompass the urban tree effect and calculate the Universal Thermal Climate Index for assessing thermal comfort. Taking Houston, Texas, and United States as an example, the study reveals that equitably mitigating urban overheat is achievable by considering the city's demographic composition and physical structure. The study results show that while urban trees may yield less cooling impact (0.27 K of Universal Thermal Climate Index in daytime) relative to cool roofs (0.30 K), the urban trees strategy can emerge as an effective approach for enhancing community resilience in heat stress-related outcomes. Social vulnerability-based heat mitigation was reviewed as vulnerability-weighted daily cumulative heat stress change. The results underscore: (i) importance of considering the community resilience when evaluating heat mitigation impact and (ii) the need to assess planting spaces for urban trees, rooftop areas, and neighborhood vulnerability when designing community-oriented urban overheating mitigation strategies.
我们利用城市尺度模拟来定量比较各种城市过热缓解策略，这些策略特别与社会脆弱性相关，以及它们在热浪期间的降温效果。我们改进了天气研究和预报模型，以纳入城市树木效应，并计算通用热气候指数来评估热舒适度。以美国得克萨斯州休斯顿市为例，该研究表明，通过考虑城市的人口构成和物理结构，可以公平地缓解城市过热。研究结果表明，虽然城市树木相对于凉爽屋顶（通用热气候指数白天降低0.30K）可能产生较小的降温影响（通用热气候指数白天降低0.27K），但城市树木策略可以成为增强社区在与热应激相关结果方面恢复力的有效方法。基于社会脆弱性的热缓解被视为脆弱性加权的每日累积热应激变化。结果强调：（i）在评估热缓解影响时考虑社区恢复力的重要性，以及（ii）在设计面向社区的城市过热缓解策略时，需要评估城市树木的种植空间、屋顶面积和社区脆弱性。
