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Cooling effect of the pocket park in the built-up block of a city: a case study in Xi’an, China

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Abstract

Pocket parks, the green infrastructures with small sizes and flexible layouts, are suitable for thermal environment improvement in the urban built-up block with limited green space. To quantify the relationship between pocket parks and the thermal environment in western China, two parks in the built-up block of Xi’an were selected. By field measurement, the cooling effect could be extended 100 m from the park boundary, connecting two parks. Furthermore, the road and greening within the block demonstrate significant influence on the cooling diffusion by regression analysis. Based on ENVI-met simulation, the ratio of the tree and the grass, the layout of the tree and the grass, and the layout of the paving were analyzed at different proportions of greening and paving of the park. Finally, a combination of the daytime physiological equivalent temperature (PET) and nighttime air temperature (AT) was proposed to choose the optimum layouts: the trees concentrated in the center and the pavement with more roads. Results can provide insights for designing pocket parks based on the thermal environment improvement.

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Acknowledgements

This research is supported by the Young Scientists Fund of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51608439), the Fund of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 52078416), and the Shaanxi Provincial Land Engineering Construction Group, China under grant 201912131-A5.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Human Settlements and Civil Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong Unversity, Xi’an, 710049, China

    Dixuan Ma, Yupeng Wang, Dian Zhou & Zongzhou Zhu

  2. Technology Innovation Center for Land Engineering and Human Settlements, Shaanxi Land Engineering Construction Group Co., Ltd and Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China

    Dixuan Ma, Yupeng Wang, Dian Zhou & Zongzhou Zhu

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Dixuan Ma carried out field measurements and ran simulations, analyzed the results, and wrote the manuscript; Dian Zhou and Yupeng Wang designed the experiments and guided the writing; Zongzhou Zhu participated in field measurements and revised the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Dian Zhou.

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Ma, D., Wang, Y., Zhou, D. et al. Cooling effect of the pocket park in the built-up block of a city: a case study in Xi’an, China. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 23135–23154 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-23809-9

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