Contributions of roads to surface temperature: evidence from Southern California

Abstract

Planners often regard streets as targets for mitigating urban heat across cities by virtue of being abundant, publicly-owned, low-albedo, low-vegetation surfaces. Few studies, however, have assessed the role streets play in contributing to urban heat, and the scale of their effect relative to the built environment around them. We examine the relationship between road area and land surface temperature across a variety of biophysical regions through the urban areas of Los Angeles and San Bernardino Counties in Southern California. Our results show that wide streets have no consistent, detectable effect on urban heat. Rather, vegetation is the primary cooling mechanism for urban areas. In the absence of trees, concrete highways are the coolest surfaces, though particular hot or cool pockets (e.g., airports, industrial centers, parks) can dominate neighborhood temperature signatures. In considering LST mitigation strategies, these hotspots might outweigh the cumulative effects of road surface changes.