1,1,2,3,4- 1University of Reading, School of Built Environment, Reading, United Kingdom of Great Britain – England, Scotland, Wales (c.halios@reading.ac.uk)
- 2Department of Risk and Disaster Reduction, University College London, London, United Kingdom
- 3Department of Earth Sciences, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden
- 4Global Centre for Clean Research (GCARE), School of Sustainability, Civil and Environmental Engineering and Physical Sciences, University of Surrey, Guildford, GU2 7XH, United Kingdom
The increasing coverage of impermeable surfaces in cities is one of the most significant causes for urban overheating; to tackle this, Urban Green Infrastructure (UGI) has long been identified as one of the key natural solutions. A recent study (Kumar et al., 2024) has indicated that understanding the less-studied UGI types is crucial for the mitigation effectiveness of urban overheating. Urban green corridors is a linear UGI type of street vegetation that connects two urban green spaces; even though this feature has been examined in the context of biodiversity studies, the impact on pedestrian thermal comfort has yet to be studied.
The Solar and Longwave Environmental Irradiance Geometry model (SOLWEIG) was deployed to estimate the mean radiant temperature (Tmrt) in Hamlets Way, Mile End, London. This is a 250-m long street in a residential area and connects Mile End Park, a grassy area with deciduous trees, pedestrian pathways, cycling routes, and a canal, with Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park, a nature reserve with urban woodland. Tmrt was estimated in two scenarios: (i) in a baseline scenario, modelling results for the existing street were compared against in-situ measurements (conducted on 25/3/2024) with reasonable agreement; and (ii) in a green corridor design scenario two lines of trees (London plane trees with 30m height and 18m diameter canopies) were added on each side of the road. Simulations ran for the entire year of 2024.
It was found that when trees were placed at either side of Hamlets Way, the daily average Tmrt can be reduced by 8 oC in green corridors compared to grey; during the peak sun hours this reduction becomes 20 oC. The effect of the spacing distance between canopies was examined and it found that when it reduced to less than 10m, the average thermal comfort was significantly increased.
How to cite: Halios, C. H., Rosier, M., Smith, S., Sun, T., Lindberg, F., and Kumar, P.: Urban Green Corridors and thermal exposure: a modelling approach, 12th International Conference on Urban Climate, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 7–11 Jul 2025, ICUC12-725, https://doi.org/10.5194/icuc12-725, 2025.
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