Introduction: The world is urbanizing rapidly; the present population living in urban areas is 54%. The more urban an area, the more concretized it is. Urban areas are quite warmer than the rural counterpart, the natural ecosystems are being replaced by buildings and other structures. There is significant temperature differences between city centers and their surrounding countryside and surface temperatures can be much greater in high density suburbs compared to low-density suburbs; the reason being concretization. This phenomenon is commonly termed as the ‘heat island effect’. A way to combat this to a certain extent is by seamlessly integrating urban green spaces with planning, management, economic, social and cultural aspects of a city.
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Along with this, vehicular emissions such as carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide and industrial emissions like sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides too pollute the cities. These emissions eventually hamper the health of the citizens as well as the environment. The urban spaces also face a large amount of noise pollution due to traffic and other activities. These can create stressful conditions and hamper health. Presence of green spaces in the crowed urban sprawl can largely help reduce the levels of noise pollution. Trees have been marked to absorb pollutants to a considerable amount. However to have a significant effect of mitigation, large areas of green spaces are required.
• Having a substantial green cover can reduce dust and smoke particles from the atmosphere by entrapping them by about 85%.
• Although the main climatic benefit of green cover is cooling and shading, vegetation and soils, particularly trees, can counter poor air quality by absorbing greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and other air pollutants, i.e. green space can act as ‘carbon sinks’
• Soil also stores carbon in the form of …show more content…
The green infrastructure to be provided needs to be well thought-out and planned to obtain maximum impact. Green infrastructure is made up of corridors, patches and overall matrix. Corridors can contribute to flood storage, also can small patches, although to a lesser extent. Both the matrix and patches can add to rainwater infiltration, especially on sandy, faster infiltrating soils. This suggests that there might be a case for restricting landfill development on these types of soil because of the contribution they can make to rainwater infiltration if they are kept as green spaces. Patches of green space and the overall matrix can provide cooling islands. Due to higher car ownership more homeowners are concreting over front gardens to create parking spaces which will increase run-off into drains. This affects both the amount and distribution of green spaces in built up
Along with this, vehicular emissions such as carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide and industrial emissions like sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides too pollute the cities. These emissions eventually hamper the health of the citizens as well as the environment. The urban spaces also face a large amount of noise pollution due to traffic and other activities. These can create stressful conditions and hamper health. Presence of green spaces in the crowed urban sprawl can largely help reduce the levels of noise pollution. Trees have been marked to absorb pollutants to a considerable amount. However to have a significant effect of mitigation, large areas of green spaces are required.
• Having a substantial green cover can reduce dust and smoke particles from the atmosphere by entrapping them by about 85%.
• Although the main climatic benefit of green cover is cooling and shading, vegetation and soils, particularly trees, can counter poor air quality by absorbing greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and other air pollutants, i.e. green space can act as ‘carbon sinks’
• Soil also stores carbon in the form of …show more content…
The green infrastructure to be provided needs to be well thought-out and planned to obtain maximum impact. Green infrastructure is made up of corridors, patches and overall matrix. Corridors can contribute to flood storage, also can small patches, although to a lesser extent. Both the matrix and patches can add to rainwater infiltration, especially on sandy, faster infiltrating soils. This suggests that there might be a case for restricting landfill development on these types of soil because of the contribution they can make to rainwater infiltration if they are kept as green spaces. Patches of green space and the overall matrix can provide cooling islands. Due to higher car ownership more homeowners are concreting over front gardens to create parking spaces which will increase run-off into drains. This affects both the amount and distribution of green spaces in built up