The Cooling Effects of Greening Strategies Within High-Density Urban Built-Up Areas in Coastal Slope Terrain

Abstract

The intensification of urban heat islands in high-density coastal slope areas poses significant challenges to sustainable development. From the perspective of sustainable urban design, this study investigates adaptive greening strategies to mitigate thermal stress, aiming to elucidate the key microclimate mechanisms under the combined influence of sea breezes and complex terrain to develop sustainable solutions that synergistically improve the thermal environment and energy efficiency. Combining field measurements with ENVI-met numerical simulations, this research systematically evaluates the thermal impacts of various greening strategies, including current conditions, lawns, shrubs, and tree configurations with different canopy coverages and leaf area indexes. During summer afternoon heat episodes, the highest temperatures within the building-dense sites were recorded in unshaded open areas, reaching 31.6 °C with a UTCI of 43.95 °C. While green shading provided some cooling, the contribution of natural ventilation was more significant (shrubs and lawns reduced temperatures by 0.23 °C and 0.15 °C on average, respectively, whereas various tree planting schemes yielded minimal reductions of only 0.012–0.015 °C). Consequently, this study proposes a climate-adaptive sustainable design paradigm: in areas aligned with the prevailing sea breeze, lower tree coverage should be maintained to create ventilation corridors that maximize passive cooling through natural wind resources; conversely, in densely built areas with continuous urban interfaces, higher tree coverage is essential to enhance shading and reduce solar radiant heat loads.

Affiliated Institutions

• Northeast Agricultural University CN
• Qingdao Agricultural University CN

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