URBAN HEAT ISLANDS

Urban heat island is a phenomenon wherein the urban areas experience an extreme increase in temperature compared to the surrounding rural and suburban areas. This effect is most commonly found in metropolitan cities of India such as Chennai, Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and so on.

REASONS FOR URBAN HEAT ISLAND

There are various factors that causes urban heat island effect, among them the primary factors are:

1. DEFORESTATION:

The primary cause of this urban heat island is due to cutting down of trees for the sake of urbanization. Growing population causes increase in demands in various aspects such as shelter, primary health care facilities, transportation network and so on. As a result Deforestation takes place to meet the human needs. Trees take in atmospheric Carbon-di-oxide and release oxygen. Cutting down of trees, releases the stored carbon which in turn significantly increases the global temperature as carbon-di-oxide is one among the primary greenhouse gases.

1. TRANSPORTATION

Urban areas have huge amount of transportation usage compared to rural areas. These vehicles, during combustion of fuels, emit greenhouse gases such as Sulphur-di-oxide, carbon-di-oxide, carbon mono-oxide. These gases get trapped in the atmosphere thereby causing the urban area to experience higher temperature.

Apart from the above-mentioned factors, there are also other reasons that causes heat island such as concrete materials which instead of reflecting, absorbs and retain the heat.

MEASURES

1. Planting more trees and increasing the vegetation cover within urban areas helps to decrease the amount of C02 being released into the atmosphere as these gets trapped by the trees and thereby decreasing the temperature.
2. Shifting to renewable energy sources helps to reduce the combustion of fossil fuels.
3. Promoting 3R – reduce, reuse, recycle helps to reduce carbon footprints.
4. Use of public transports can significantly reduce the greenhouse gas emission from individual vehicles.

Also use of bicycles, switching off electrical appliances when not is use and proper awareness  to public through campaigns can help to reduce the carbon footprints which thereby reduced the heat island effect in urban areas