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Re-naturing Cities: Impact of Microclimate, Human Thermal Comfort and Recreational Participation

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Climate Change, Hazards and Adaptation Options

Part of the book series: Climate Change Management ((CCM))

Abstract

With rapid urbanisation, changes to the urban environment and climate are inevitable. This exacerbates the risks for meteorological hazard such as heatwaves where this is one of the common issues faced by major cities worldwide. Heat related issues pose an impact not only to the environment but also lead to heat related human health problems, economic loss to businesses, damages to infrastructures and in extreme cases, cause deaths. Poor urban designs that are characterised by the abundance of grey infrastructures increase the impact on urban climate with the potential of intensifying heat waves and urban heat island (UHI) effects. Additionally, these grey designs also limit recreational participation. Re-naturing cities using green infrastructure can provide nature-based solutions that can be useful in mitigating the abovementioned meteorological hazards. Therefore, understanding the impact of re-naturing cities using green infrastructures (GI) on microclimate mitigations, human thermal comfort improvement and recreational participation is beneficial in improving the urban environment and ensuring the wellbeing of urban citizens. This paper provides justifications on implementing nature based solutions using green infrastructures in cities, thus improving future urban planning that potentially increases cities' resilience to environmental hazards.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Forestry, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia

    Ruzana Sanusi & Sheena Bidin

  2. Institute of Tropical Forestry and Forest Products, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia

    Ruzana Sanusi

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  1. Ruzana Sanusi
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  2. Sheena Bidin
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Correspondence to Ruzana Sanusi .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. HAW Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

    Walter Leal Filho

  2. Oceanografia y Ecologia Marina. Coastal Climate Science, Universidad de la República de Uruguay, Montevideo, Uruguay

    Gustavo J. Nagy

  3. Department of Land, Environment, Agriculture and Forestry, University of Padova, Legnaro, Italy

    Marco Borga

  4. Department of Engineering, Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, Lima, Peru

    Pastor David Chávez Muñoz

  5. Department of Hydrology, University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland

    Artur Magnuszewski

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Sanusi, R., Bidin, S. (2020). Re-naturing Cities: Impact of Microclimate, Human Thermal Comfort and Recreational Participation. In: Leal Filho, W., Nagy, G., Borga, M., Chávez Muñoz, P., Magnuszewski, A. (eds) Climate Change, Hazards and Adaptation Options. Climate Change Management. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37425-9_28

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