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NEWS RELEASE

Urban greenery: not only trees are important

Role of vegetation in reducing thermal stress in urban areas

Scientists at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) conducted a multi-year empirical study to assess the impact of trees on city temperatures. Taking the city of Würzburg as an example, the researchers showed that vegetation cover of approximately 40 percent is needed to bring about lower summer temperatures.

Green infrastructure can help cities adapt to climate change by moderating the higher air temperatures, thus reducing the heat stress experienced by people. But the type of greenery plays an important role.

To understand the extent of urban heat islands and the relationship between daily and seasonal outdoor thermal stress, a research team headed by TUM conducted a three-year empirical study in the city of Würzburg.

Comparing urban and suburban climate conditions

The mean air temperature at inner-city sites was 1.3 degrees Celsius higher than at suburban locations during summer and 5 degrees Celsius higher during winter. “The differences were influenced by the characteristics of the prevailing land uses and especially by the number of buildings,” says Stephan Pauleit, a Professor of Strategic Landscape Planning and Management at TUM.

At one of the urban locations – ”Marktplatz”, where there was no tree – a total of 97 hot days with air temperatures exceeding 30 degrees Celsius were counted over the three-year period of the study. On nine of those days, the wet bulb global temperature – an index for understanding thermal stress – exceeded the 35 degrees Celsius threshold which indicate extreme thermal stress. The wet bulb globe temperature (WBGT) is defined as the lowest temperature that can be reached under current ambient conditions by the evaporation of water only. It was calculated using meteorological data and other associated variables at seven different stations starting from the city center – “Marktplatz” to sub-urban site Gerbrunn. These values demonstrate the influence of the surrounding area, including site-specific characteristics such as buildings and greenspaces.

“Our study showed that extreme heat stress in summer could be halved with around 40 percent cover of greenspaces in the built environment, including grass lawns, green roofs and green walls with little compromise in increasing winter cold stress,” says Dr. Mohammad A. Rahman, a scientist at the Chair for Strategic Landscape Planning and Management at TUM.

A variety of greenspaces is important for the urban climate

In heterogeneous urban ecosystems, trees have multiple biophysical functions. First, with their extended canopies, trees reduce the input of shortwave radiation to the ground level by up to 90 percent, in particular during summer when deciduous trees are in leaf in temperate and cold climates. Second, trees cool their immediate vicinity by 1 to 8 degrees Celsius and increase the relative humidity of the air. This occurs through transpiration, i.e. the evaporation of water through the leaves during food production.

At the same time, trees can also bring negative effects such as hindering the vertical and horizontal mixing of air within narrow street canyons, preventing the polluted air at pedestrian level from being diluted and blown away by breezes. By contrast, grass cover reduces the radiative heat load through higher reflection as compared to the built environment. It also allows higher wind speeds to limit the summer heat load and greater solar radiation for reduced winter cold stress.

Indispensable: strategically planned greenspaces

“Our results call into question the inner city densification trends currently seen in growing urban areas. To successfully adapt to climate change, adequate urban greening must be ensured,” says Rahman.

To avoid negative effects of climate change on human health, greenspaces must be planned strategically to ensure that they can also effectively reduce heat stresses in high-density urban areas.

Publication:

Mohammad A. Rahman, Eleonora Franceschi, Nayanesh Pattnaik, Astrid Moser-Reischl, Christian Hartmann, Heiko Paeth, Hans Pretzsch, Thomas Rötzer & Stephan Pauleit:

Spatial and temporal changes of outdoor thermal stress: influence of urban land cover types. Scientific Reports. Date: 13.01.2022. URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-04669-8

More information:

The research project Climate Experience Würzburg was funded by Bavarian State Ministry of the Environment and Consumer Protection within the framework of the Center for Urban Ecology and Climate Adaptation and with funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG). The city of Würzburg, the municipality of Gerbrunn and the Bavarian Center for Applied Energy Research (ZAE) were partners in the project.

Contacts:

Prof. Dr. Stephan Pauleit

Chair for Strategic Landscape Planning and Management

Technical University of Munich (TUM)

Emil-Ramann-Str. 6

D-85354 Freising

Tel.: +49 (0)8161 71 4780

pauleit(at)tum.de

Dr. Mohammad A. Rahman

Scientist at the Chair for Strategic Landscape Planning and Management

Technical University of Munich

Tel.: +49 (0)8161 714 661

ma.rahman(at)tum.de

The Technical University of Munich (TUM) is one of Europe’s leading research universities, with more than 600 professors, 48,000 students, and 11,000 academic and non-academic staff. Its focus areas are the engineering sciences, natural sciences, life sciences and medicine, combined with economic and social sciences. TUM acts as an entrepreneurial university that promotes talents and creates value for society. In that it profits from having strong partners in science and industry. It is represented worldwide with the TUM Asia campus in Singapore as well as offices in Beijing, Brussels, Mumbai, San Francisco, and São Paulo. Nobel Prize winners and inventors such as Rudolf Diesel, Carl von Linde, and Rudolf Mößbauer have done research at TUM. In 2006, 2012, and 2019 it won recognition as a German "Excellence University." In international rankings, TUM regularly places among the best universities in Germany.