Page 339 - Çevre Şehir İklim İngilizce - Sayı 4

Dilara Yılmaz - Sevgi Öztürk

necessity to take measures to reduce the heat island effect in cities in order to
ensure sustainable urban development. Especially since slum areas located in
cities are open to many disaster risks, they also make cities be exposed to more
negative effects in the process of climate change. Considering that the urban
heat island effect is more intense in the areas of construction, implementing
the policies to reduce the urban heat island effect in the urban transformation
areas will ensure harmony and resilience of cities in the process of climate
change. For this reason, it is of great importance to renew these regions within
the scope of urban transformation projects by adopting similar policies in the
process of climate change.
Cities consume more energy than rural areas due to the activities such
as heating and cooling of buildings, urban transportation, commercial and
industrial activities. This high consumption is influenced by the urban heat
island effect. At this point, the importance of assessments rises which reveal the
vulnerability and affectability of cities to climate change process with spatial,
environmental, social and economic dimensions(Çobanyılmaz and Yüksel
2013; Khajuria and Ravindranath, 2012; Gizachew and Shimelis, 2014; Zanetti
et al., 2016; Yenice and Ercoşkun, 2019). Because the land use and surface of
each city are particularly different, the urban heat island effect also varies. The
urban heat island, which is generally known as a negative effect on cities, also
provides many economic benefits to people in cities located in cold climate
regions (Oke, 1973; Gago et al., 2013; Roth et al., 2013; Unger et al., 2014;
Mohajerani et al., 2017; Yuan et al., 2017; Zhou et al., 2017; He, 2018). In this
context, it is an important necessity to create permanent policies to contribute
to climate-sensitive urban development by giving priority to cities with a low
capability to fight against climate change (Thomas et al., 2014; Lehnert et al.,
2015; Yuan et al., 2018; Wang et al., 2018; Dai et al., 2018; Zheng et al., 2018;
Chen and Hu, 2022).
In the studies examined within the scope of the study, it is emphasized
that urban heat island affects all cities more or less, that the evaluation of
the urban heat island effect and the parameters increasing or decreasing
this effect through a comprehensive analysis is a complex process. From the
perspective of cities, it is estimated that the impact of climate change on
urban areas will reach more alarming extents (Filho et al., 2021). Therefore,
in the process of global climate change, it is extremely significant to develop
applicable mitigation and adaptation policies. Planning strategies need to
be established to reduce the negative effects of urban heat island, which is
one of the major environmental problems of climate change. Since these
strategies directly affect the temperature at the local scale, they should be
made applicable in the field of planning (Givoni, 1991; Rizwan et al., 2008;

328 The Journal of Environment, Urban and Climate