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Introduction

The effects of urban heat and global warming are becoming one of the
biggest challenges in the adaptation process of cities to climate change
(Parker, 2004; Patz et al., 2005; Georgescu et al., 2014; Sun et al., 2016).
Today, about 55% of the world’s population lives in cities. By 2050, this rate
is expected to reach about 70% (UNDESA, 2023; WHO, 2023). Given that the
trend of urbanization and urbanizing will continue to increase, the prediction
that the increasing pressure of the urbanization process on the climate system
will appear as a major problem is also one of the greatest sources of concern.
This situation makes urban areas an important component of the World’s land
surface (Parker, 2004; Sun et al., 2016; Lee and Kim, 2016; Sun et al., 2019;
IPCC, 2022).
Cities continue to be the basic unit of social, cultural and economic
development as they are in a constant process of change and transformation.
They play an important role in economic development because they offer more
opportunities in terms of education, employment and quality of life compared
to rural areas. In today’s cities, this situation brings along population growth,
economic, social and environmental problems. At this point, formation of
urban heat island is often observed in cities as a microclimatic environmental
problem (Nakata and Souza, 2013; Allegrini et al., 2015; Canan, 2017). It is
known that carbon emissions produced as a result of man-made activities
affect the climate worldwide with potentially devastating consequences
(Hornsey and Fielding, 2020). According to 6th Assessment Report published
by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2022 it is estimated
that the greenhouse gases existing in the atmosphere and the current emission
trends will cause more severe events than today by 2040. Climate change
occurring due to man-made reasons such as increasing carbon emissions
causes significant changes in the energy budget or energy balance of the
Earth, deterioration of the natural physical geography, differentiation of the
earth’s albedo and, as a result, deforestation of cities on a regional and global
scale (IPCC, 2022; Türkeş, 2022).
In addition, high-rise buildings in cities, the layout of buildings, the materials
used on building surfaces are the most important environmental problems
caused by urbanization and negatively affect the urban climate by affecting
heat dissipation. The urbanization process leads to the transformation of
natural landscapes such as vegetation, water bodies and agricultural lands
into impervious surfaces and urban infrastructure areas. This transformation
results in a decrease in the cycle of transpiration and evaporation due to
vegetation, and increases the absorption of solar radiation. This situation, on
the other hand, affects the climate on a local and regional scale and leads to

318 The Journal of Environment, Urban and Climate