Global Cities’ Plans to Mitigate Urban Heat Islands Effect Exploiting Urban Green Coverage

This chapter presents the urban green coverage (UGC) plans of six global cities: Chicago (the USA), Curitiba (Brazil), Stuttgart (Germany), Tokyo (Asia), Melbourne (Australia), and Johannesburg (South Africa). The selection is based on two main criteria; (i) a city from each continent to cover a different range of climate and focus on the fact that it is global trend; and (ii) cities having different approaches of UGC application such as demonstration project, incentive project, and urban forest plan. This chapter also highlights established criteria of ten points used to assess each case study to guide a scientific comparison. These ten criteria are as follows: (a) location, (b) climate, (c) urban heat island problem in city, (d) existing UGC in city, (e) date of UGC plan, (f) major types of UGC used, (g) main goal of the plan, (h) strategies, (i) benefits to the environment, and (j) guidelines for planting vegetation. Moreover, this chapter provides the concluded remarks concerning each city to deduce success stories and highlight barriers facing such approach and UGC applications. At the end of this chapter, readers can compare the different approaches used by global cities to mitigate high temperatures by virtue of UGC; this is essential as it compares global cities and draws lessons to assist in UGC implementation.