Recent greening may curb urban warming in Latin American cities of better economic conditions

Yang Ju; Iryna Dronova; Daniel A Rodriguez; Maryia Bakhtsiyarava; Irene Farah

doi:10.1016/j.landurbplan.2023.104896

Recent greening may curb urban warming in Latin American cities of better economic conditions

Landsc Urban Plan. 2023 Dec:240:None. doi: 10.1016/j.landurbplan.2023.104896.

Authors

Yang Ju¹, Iryna Dronova^{2

3}, Daniel A Rodriguez^{4

5}, Maryia Bakhtsiyarava⁶, Irene Farah⁴

Affiliations

¹ School of Architecture and Urban Planning, Nanjing University, Rm. 810, Jianliang Bldg., No. 22 Hankou Rd., Nanjing, China.
² Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California, Berkeley, USA.
³ Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning, University of California, Berkeley, USA.
⁴ Department of City and Regional Planning, University of California, Berkeley, USA.
⁵ Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California, Berkeley, USA.
⁶ Institute of Urban and Regional Development, University of California, Berkeley, USA.

Abstract

Rising temperatures have profound impacts on the well-being of urban residents. However, factors explaining the temporal variability of urban thermal environment, or urban warming, remain insufficiently understood, especially in the Global South. Addressing this gap, we studied the relationship between city-level economic conditions and urban warming, and how urban green space mediated this relationship, focusing on 359 major Latin American cities between 2001 and 2022. While effect sizes varied by economic and temperature measures used, we found that better economic conditions were associated with lower baseline greenness in 2011, which contributed to faster warming. There was modest evidence that this faster warming associated with lower baseline greenness and improved economic conditions was partially offset by cooling from recent greening (2001-2022) in cities of better economic conditions. This offset was more evident in arid cities. Together, these findings provide insights into the urban warming mechanism manifested through the effect of economic conditions on urban green space, for Latin American cities and other high-density cities transforming in a similar context.

Keywords: Economic conditions; Green space; Latin America; Mediating effect; Temporal variability; Urban warming.

Grants and funding

WT_/Wellcome Trust/United Kingdom