Cities need smarter, climate- planning to boost cooling benefits from green cover: IIT-Gn study | Ahmedabad News
AT TIMES, presence of greening or increase in greening is considered part of efforts towards urban cooling. The increasing trend of lawns in farmhouses or landscaping in residential buildings is seen as attempts to increase the green cover in cities. However, in a recent study conducted by the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar (IITGN), researchers found that it is the convergence of three elements – greening, the leaf area index and photosynthetic activity. The study shows that while urban greening remains essential to reduce heat stress, cities need smarter and more climate-responsive planning to ensure that tree cover delivers maximum cooling benefits. A lawn, a palm-lined street, a park with large shade trees and a dense plantation in a narrow humid lane may all appear as “green cover”, but they can affect heat stress quite differently. The study highlights that Indian cities need integrated urban cooling strategies where shade trees, parks, roadside plantations, open spaces and ventilation corridors are planned together. In humid and dense neighbourhoods, factors such as species selection, canopy spacing, pruning, irrigation …