Estimating the effect of park proximity to the central of Melbourne city on Urban Heat Island (UHI) relative to Land Surface Temperature (LST)

Temperature in cities cores has realized always warmer than the surroundings, which is described as Urban Heat Island (UHI) phenomenon. Using of vegetation is one of the effective methods to combat this phenomenon. This study used urban parks (27 parks) located on three distance levels from the Melbourne city centre, which were choose by graduated size. Parks were heavily tested eight measuring time per day (six major and two minor) per month. Handheld measurement device used to measure Land Surface Temperature (LST) used to collect data during all transect points, which extended up 0.295–3 km beyond each park’s perimeter. Study results presented that average maximums Park Cool Island (PCI) between 3 °C and 10 °C for all rings, however, parks close to the city centre showed higher PCI than the others during the first part of average maximums of Park Cooling Distance (PCD) up to 1100 m. Closest parks to the city (Ring 1) extended PCD to 3000 m, however, the other parks reached farther than 2000 m. Study concluded that all parks provided cooling benefits to the surrounding urban area. Urbanization was strongly effected on cooling magnitude (PCI) in the first cooling distance, which reached to 746 m. In the other words, parks decreased temperature in the built up areas started from the edge of parks to 746 m (Ring 1 > Ring 2 > Ring 3).