Urban heat island mitigation and adaptation in China: policies and practices

Abstract

The unprecedented urbanization in China has resulted in extensive local warming in terms of the urban heat island (UHI) effect, elevating the threat to urban residents under global climate change. The country is also projected to experience massive rural-urban land conversion by the end of this century, making it even more urgent to limit UHI through city plans of mitigation and adaptation. Nevertheless, due to diversified urban systems and complex natural environments, it is challenging to seek all-round effectiveness across China. Based on a systematic literature review, this chapter first analyzes the UHI evolution in Chinese cities in the context of rapid urbanization. Then, it summarizes a 20-year-long effort of city to national policies and practices from 2000-20 and evaluates the overall efficacy of historical and current efforts. Specifically, it elaborates the successes and failures of Wuhan, a megacity located in the middle subtropics zone and the pioneer city in mainland China in UHI attenuation. Last, it concludes the existing challenges and future directions of UHI mitigation and adaptation in China. The major needs to facilitate future UHI attenuation can be summarized as (1) data availability, (2) an enhanced understanding of the regional differentiation of background climates, and (3) a high level of policy continuity and coherence across multiple administrative levels and various plans. Overall, this chapter offers a new lens on the UHI attenuation in China and hence also provides valuable lessons for other countries, especially developing ones.