Green Infrastructure for cool cities

Image: ©pixabay.de

This course is held in English

With global climate change in focus and increasing urban population trends, it is vital to reduce the intensity of urban heat island and adapt to the changing climate in cities. Urban green infrastructure (UGI) is a well-known and promising solution that can provide numerous adaptive measures to design and develop climate-resilient cities.

This course will investigate the relationship of urban green infrastructures and the various urban climate aspects like temperature, radiation, wind, precipitation, humidity etc. that can serve for cooling cities and also contribute in coping with other challenges in cities such as air pollution or water management. It will also provide a practical approach for the students to understand the relations and impacts of green areas on various urban climate factors.

Teaching staff

 Topics of the seminar include:

  • green cooling mechanisms from micro to mesoscale, 

  • different types of green infrastructure such as parks, city trees, roof and façade greening, 

  • combinations with blue infrastructure under the focus of sponge cities, 

  • recommendations for optimizing green spaces in landscape architecture and planning

  • techniques to monitor the effectiveness of green infrastructure as well as 

  • limits and trade-offs of green infrastructure for cooling cities

  • practical exercise with GIS and ENVI met applications

After participating in this course, the students will be able to explain the mechanisms of local cooling and influencing factors, will be able to describe the effectivity of different urban green infrastructure types in order to reduce the urban heat island. Moreover, they will be able to critically assess the effectivity of urban green space solutions and understand microclimate factors through practical approach. 

In this seminar, each lecture will provide a brief overview of a key aspect related to green cities with presentations, group activities and discussions of current research studies. The practical exercise will enable students to relate green spaces and the influencing factors of urban climate. The semester course completion will be based on a 20 minutes short presentations (50%) and the a final report/assignment (3500-5000 words) (50%) about a specific key aspect of green infrastructure. 

Further information (eCampus)