Urban Heat Islands

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Perth with WA EPA in its “Perth and Peel @ 3.5 Million” program stated 36 recommendations to Perth, here are three that are related solutions to UHIs effects:

- Add important areas of remaining native vegetation to the conservation estate;

- Implement a long-term integrated transport plan that reduces traffic congestion, improves air quality and encourages increased uptake of walking, cycling and public transport; and

- Take steps to counteract impacts to air quality, human health and amenity from the ‘urban heat island effect’, such as through tree planting [5].

dicussion

Although there are various approaches and techniques trying to understand the causes of UHIs and recent technology improved those methods, all studies cannot create a solid conclusion, since there are limited monitoring data or they are not able to cover all variables simultaneously [9]. Similarly, measuring day-to-day temperature is not an accuracy method to understand the causes of UHIs, it is because as there are geographical factors influencing long-term variations, there also are local phenomena that change temperature [8], and these phenomena can come from anthropogenic activities. However, a difference in temperature between urban areas and its surrounds exist and its effects can be dangerous, therefore must be mitigated in all ways possible.

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References

[1] Akbari, H., Menon, S., & Rosenfeld, A. (2009, June). Global cooling: increasing world-wide urban albedos to offset CO2. Climatic Change, 94(3), 275-286. Retrieved April 07, 2016

[2] ArborCarbon. (2009). Arbor Carbon. Retrieved April 09, 2016, from Arbor Carbon: http://www.arborcarbon.com.au/

[3] Arrau, C. P., & Peña, M. A. (2015, September 09). The Urban Heat Island (UHI) Effect . Retrieved April 02, 2016, from Urban Heat Islands: http://www.urbanheatislands.com/

[4] Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2016, March 30). Regional Population Growth, Australia, 2014-15. Retrieved April 09, 2016, from Australian Bureau of Statistics: http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/3218.0Main+Features12014-15?OpenDocument

[5] Environmental Protection Authority. (2015, August 6). EPA: Compact city needed to protect future of Perth-Peel environment. Retrieved April 07, 2016, from Environmental Protection Authority: http://www.epa.wa.gov.au/News/mediaStmnts/Pages/EPACompactcityneededtoprotectfutureofPerth-Peelenvironment.aspx

[6] Heat Island Group. (2016, June 1). Heat Island Group. Retrieved April 07, 2016, from Berkeley Lab: https://heatisland.lbl.gov/

[7] Jacobs, B., Mikhailovich, N., & Delaney, C. (2014). Final Report Benchmarking Australia’s Urban Tree Canopy: An i-Tree Assessment. Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology, Sydney. Sydney: UTS. Retrieved April 09, 2016, from http://202020vision.com.au/media/7141/benchmarking_australias_urban_tree_canopy.pdf

[8] Masumoto, K. (2015). Urban Heat Islands. In R. H. Armon, & O. Hänninen, Environmental Indicators (pp. 67-75). Springer Netherlands. doi:10.1007/978-94-017-9499-2

[9] Mirzaei, P. A., & Haghighat, F. (2010, Octouber). Approaches to study Urban Heat Island - Abilities and limitations. Building and Environment, 45(10), 2192-2210. doi:10.1016/j.buildenv.2010.04.001

[10] US Environmental Protection Agency. (2016, March 30). Heat Island Effect - Basic Information. Retrieved April 03, 2016, from United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA): https://www.epa.gov/heat-islands

[11] Wong, K. V., & Chaudhry, S. (2012, October 5). Use of Satellite Images for Observational and Quantitative Analysis of Urban Heat Islands Around the World. (H. Metghalchi, Ed.) Journal of Energy Resources Technology, 134(4), 8. doi:10.1115/1.4007486

[12] Yang, X., & Li, Y. (2015, April 10). The impact of building density and building height heterogeneity on. Building and Environment, 90, 146-156. doi:doi:10.1016/j.buildenv.2015.03.037

[13] Young, E. (2015, September 16). Research reveals Perth's hottest real estate... in terms of tree cover. Retrieved April 04, 2016, from WA today: http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/research-reveals-perths-hottest-real-estate-in-terms-of-tree-cover-20150915-gjn834.html

[14] Zhao, L., Lee, X., Smith, R. B., & Oleson, K. (2014, july 09). Strong contributions of local background climate