Urban Heat Island Mitigation: GIS-Based Analysis for a Tropical City Singapore

Abstract

To reduce the pace of climate change and achieve the goals set in Paris Agreement by 2030, Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries have started to prioritize sustainability as one of their top agendas. Numerous studies have demonstrated that one of the most important issues that must be addressed to halt climate change is the urban heat island (UHI). Given the different mitigation strategies available, the focus of our study here is to assess the influence of green spaces and Green Mark commercial buildings on Singapore’s temperature distribution using non-exhaustive factors related to energy consumption and efficiency. Additionally, this paper examines the effectiveness of green spaces and commercial buildings in reducing the rate of temperature change. This study uses ArcGIS software to map data, perform spatial analysis through cloud-based mapping, and produce visual representations with geographic information systems (GIS) to promote greater insight on the formulation of goals and policy making for strategic management. In comparison to non-commercial districts, our findings show that commercial districts have the lowest percentage of temperature change, an estimated 1.6 percent, due to a high concentration of green spaces and Green Mark commercial buildings. Our research also helps to close the research gaps in determining the efficacy of Green Mark commercial buildings, skyrise greeneries, gardens, and national parks. It also helps to minimize the bottleneck of expensive building costs and environmental damage that would have occurred from a design flaw found too late in the urban planning and construction process.