Urban Greens: An Adaptation to address Climate Change
The current urbanization trends indicate that we are heading towards a future where we will have to deal with huge numbers in terms of population, land coverage, pollution and temperature. Planning for sustainable cities is therefore a difficult process that takes into account the core tenets of sustainability—economic, environmental, and social equity.
In architecture, you’ll learn to manage various challenges and devise plans for sustainable urban development, addressing pressing issues in modern city planning. Lingayas Vidyapeeth is one of the top architecture colleges in Delhi NCR, offering comprehensive studies in the field.
A growing idea, urban green infrastructure (GI) supports sustainability by serving biotic, abiotic, and cultural purposes. The urban landscape is shaped by parks, forests, verdant pathways, and trees. They have a multitude of positive social effects and consistently improve the quality of life for locals.
The core idea behind “green” infrastructure is that it is seen as a necessary infrastructure that is just as significant as “hard” or social infrastructure. An integral part of the “good life” in cities is urban green infrastructure. It is made up of natural, near-natural, and artificial green areas and supports biodiversity growth and ecosystem services that are important to us as people. Its development as a network, as opposed to its component parts, enables better and more sustainable delivery of its wide range of services.
From rooftop gardens to urban forests, urban green (and blue) spaces are incredibly varied. While some of these areas are already frequently taken into account in planning practice, others—especially private green spaces like gardens and urban farmlands have gotten less attention from studies and practitioners. Their impact on UGI networks is frequently poorly recognized.
Improved Solid Waste Management in Smart Cities
Urban Challenge: Adapting to Climate Change
Due to its ability to provide ecosystem services, UGI can be extremely important in both adaptation and, to a lesser extent, mitigation efforts for climate change (Multifunctionality). Significantly, planned adaptation is less expensive than retrofitting and emergency efforts.
Role of Urban Green in Addressing the Urban Challenge
- It is anticipated that in the future, summer heatwaves would become longer, more intense, and more frequent. Because urban areas have a higher concentration of impermeable surfaces, they are particularly severely affected. There is proof that boosting the amount of UGI elements can help mitigate the effects of the urban heat island effect3. Individual parks, however, should ideally be a part of a network that includes green corridors that allow cool, clean air from the surrounding countryside to enter the city, as they have limited cooling potential on their own.
- Climate change is expected to increase the frequency and size of intense rainfall events, which will raise the need for better stormwater management. In this case, “greening” gray infrastructure—using rain gardens or bioswales in place of traditional stormwater disposal systems, for example—can be helpful.
- Rising sea levels pose a threat to cities in low-elevation coastal zones, posing threats of floods, erosion, and submergence. The preservation and restoration of coastal ecosystems and landforms, including boosting vegetation to stabilize sand dunes, are some potential remedies.
Ar. Aditi Arora
HOD
School of Architecture and Planning
Lingaya’s Vidyapeeth
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