Urban gardening for mitigating heat island effect

Abstract

Excess anthropogenic CO2 in the atmosphere above urban areas can create an isolated heat island closely related to dense cities. Adding more green spaces may be strenuous because of the lack of public spaces. The upgrowth of the human population, along with anthropogenic activities, is the critical factor that escalates the effect of the urban heat island. However, they could be the most prominent resources to decrease it by utilizing community gardens or their private land as a functional green space. This paper is a literature study to determine the importance of urban gardening for heat island mitigation. We also conducted a spatial analysis to measure land surface temperature to understand the benefit of urban gardens for dense cities. Based on the previous studies, promoting urban gardening to the citizens can be an effective strategy to increase the green space proportion to meet the requirement for a healthy urban environment. Urban gardens help reduce the heat island effect by creating thermal comfort, reducing flood risk and water runoff, and conserving energy for building architects. This paper also recommends strategic plans for policymakers to achieve practical urban gardening as an urban heat island mitigation strategy.