Evaluation of the Effect of Urban-agriculture on Urban Heat Island Mitigation

Abstract

Vegetation can make not only to lower the urban ambient air temperature (UAAT) by crop evapotranspiration (ET) and increasing solar radiation albedo, but also to reduce the urban air pollution by $CO_2$ uptake and $O_2$ emission in addition to the reducing ozone concentrations by aid of lower the UAAT. To evaluate the effect of vegetation on urban heat island mitigation (UHIM), the climate change of 6 cities during 30 years are analysed, and the amount of ET, $CO_2$ uptake, $O_2$ emission and ozone concentrations are estimated in Korea. The most hot season is the last part of July and the first part of August, and the highest average UAAT of a period of ten days was $35.03^{\circ}C$ during 30 years (1979 - 2008). The mean values of maximum ET of rice and soybean in urban area during urban heat island phenomena were 6.86 and $6.00mm\;day^{-1}$, respectively. The effect of rice and soybean cultivation on lowering the UAAT was assessed to be 10.5 and $3.0^{\circ}C$ in Suwon, respectively, whereas the differences between the UAAT and canopy temperature at urban paddy and upland in Ansung were 2.6 and $2.2^{\circ}C$. On the other hand, the urban-garden in Suwon city had resulted in lowering the UAAT and the surface temperature of buildings to 2.0 and $14.5^{\circ}C$, respectively. Furthermore, the amounts of $CO_2$ uptake by rice and soybean were estimated to be 20.27 and $15.54kg\;CO_2\;10a^{-1}day^{-1}$, respectively. The amounts of $O_2$ emission by rice and soybean were also assessed to be 14.74 and $11.30kg\;O_2\;10a^{-1}day^{-1}$, respectively. As other cleaning effect of air pollution, the ozone concentrations could be also estimated to reduce 21.0, 8.8, and 4.0 ppb through rice-, soybean cultivation, and urban gardening during most highest temperature period in summer, respectively.