Understanding the Role of Urban Morphology and Green Areas Configuration During Heat Waves

This paper focuses on urban planning strategies to adapt cities to the increasing rising of temperatures during summer heat waves. The main target is to investigate which configuration and distribution pattern of green spaces could effectively improve natural cooling of urban environments. Although the benefit that green areas give to natural cooling is well known, this kind of studies has hardly been carried out, especially at an urban scale where it is crucial to define quantities and density of green areas to address open spaces design. To reach this goal, a methodology based on the interpretation of the statistical correlation among temperature, urban parameters and green areas configurational indicators was implemented and applied to the case study of the Municipality of Naples, performing all the analysis in a GIS. Results provide guidelines to improve natural cooling in urban areas adopting the most effective configuration and distribution of green areas within a densely-built context.