Does size matter? Modelling the cooling effect of green infrastructures in a megacity during a heat wave

The vulnerability of urban ecosystems to global climate change becomes a key issue in research and political agendas. Urban green infrastructures (UGIs) are widely considered as a nature-based solution to mitigate climate change and adapt to local urban climate anomalies in cities. However, UGI-induced cooling effect depends on the size, location and geometry of green spaces, and such dependencies remain overlooked. This research aimed to investigate the cooling effect of UGIs of different size under extreme conditions of 2021 summer heat wave for the case of Moscow megacity (Russia) using a numerical mesoclimatic model COSMO. UGIs objects were assigned to one of the four size categories (S, M, L and XL) based on their area. Their cooling effects at the local, non-local and city scales were evaluated based on comparison between the model outcomes for the realistic land cover and simulations for which UGI of a particular size category were replaced by the built-up areas typical for their surroundings. The highest cooling effect was observed for XL size UGIs, which reduced the local heat-wave-averaged air temperatures by up to 3.4 °C, whereas for the S size UGIs it did not exceed 2 °C. The cooling effectiveness for XL category was higher than for S category by 23 % inside the green spaces (locally), by 40–90 % in the buffer zones around the green space (non-locally) and by 35 % for the whole city. More effective cooling of large UGIs is partially explained by their stronger park breeze effect, i.e., impact on the airflow increasing the divergence over green spaces. However, when standardized to the population affected by cooling, the M size UGIs made the strongest contribution to the thermal environment where people live and work. The stronger non-local cooling induced by the largest UGI objects cannot compensate for their remoteness from the built environment. [Display omitted] •The UGI-induced cooling in a megacity is studied using ultra-detailed mesoclimatic simulations with a 250-m grid step.•The UGI cooling effectiveness increases logarithmically with UGI area.•The strongest local and non-local cooling is found for the largest parks and urban forests.•Park breeze effect contributes to higher cooling effectiveness for the large UGI spaces.•Small and medium UGI spaces are more valuable for local cooling of built-up areas where people live and work.