Exploring Seasonal Variations in the Park Cool Island Effect in a Tropical Urban Environment

Urban overheating, intensified by climate change and the urban heat island phenomenon, presents critical challenges for tropical cities. Parks offer a promising nature-based solution by mitigating overheating through the Park Cool Island (PCI) effect. This study leverages a high-resolution sensor network deployed in a park and its surrounding urban area in Singapore, utilising data collected from 2022 to 2024 to investigate seasonal and diurnal variations in PCI intensity. A modified metric, PCI_modified, is utilised to enhance the spatial granularity of traditional PCI analyses. By integrating Geographical Information Science techniques, PCI_modified allows interpolation of sensor-based point data to visualise cooling intensities across the park and urban areas. This approach leverages on dense sensor network to enable detailed examination of how urban characteristics, such as tree height, tree density, and building height, influence cooling effects over different seasons and diurnal cycles.

The methodology proposed in this study aims to provide new insights into the temporal dynamics of PCI in tropical urban environments, where seasonal variations are less studied. Results obtained will contribute to the literature by advancing understanding of the PCI effect’s variability and its relationship with urban morphology and vegetation characteristics. Overall, the findings have potential applications in urban planning, offering strategies to observe and optimise cooling benefits for sustainable city development under changing climatic conditions.