Santamouris is a leading expert in urban climate, sustainability, and environmental science, with a focus on the impacts of climate change in urban environments. He has conducted extensive research on urban heat islands, socio-economic disparities, and green infrastructure in cities around the world, contributing to numerous publications in this field.
His most recent studies reveal that London's low-income areas face more severe heat challenges compared to those in Seoul and Shenzhen, largely due to historical planning and fewer green spaces. According to him, these insights underscore the need for urban policies that better address both environmental and social disparities.
Architecture & Design: Your research highlights the link between income levels and urban heat intensity in London, Seoul, and Shenzhen. What were the most striking differences in how this relationship manifests across these cities?
Mat Santamouris: The existing literature is rich in studies performed in various USA cities showing that low income and vulnerable population lives in deprived areas suffering from significant overheating, low greenery levels, high pollution and inadequate infrastructure. Similar conditions are also observed in several European cities like London. However, in most of the Asian cities, the conditions are quite different.
Although there is an important social stratification, the magnitude of the problem is less severe. This is because, the market forces and the social and economic inequalities observed in American cities and which have determined the local social, economic and environmental diversification, present different characteristics in the Asian cities and had much less significance through the history, contributing towards a higher social cohesion and decreased local discriminations.
In London, lower-income populations experience greater urban heat island (UHI) effects compared to their wealthier counterparts. What urban planning or policy factors have contributed to this disparity?
In London, immigrants, minorities and vulnerable and low-income population were pushed to live in urban zones of lower economic value and financial cost. Low-income population has not the economic means to live in the expensive parts of the city and should settle in economically affordable neighbourhoods. In these low-cost urban zones, green infrastructure, heat sinks and efficient environmental systems are quite missing, while most of these neighbourhoods may suffer from very serious anthropogenic heat generated from the local industry or the traffic rising the magnitude of the local overheating and the pollution levels.
This is not the case of the wealthier urban zones were the local green infrastructure; the landscape characteristics and the release of the anthropogenic heat is considerably reduced contributing towards a more sustainable local microclimate and environment.
Your study suggests that income has a weaker influence on urban heat exposure in Seoul and Shenzhen compared to London. Could you elaborate on the social and economic structures that contribute to this difference?
The environmental and overheating stratification and the heterogeneities observed in London and also in most of the US cities, reflect in a direct way the economic and social stratification in the local societies.
The size of the low income group in the society including minorities, immigrants, unemployed people, non-skilled population and non-integrated households, is quite higher in London than in the specific Asian cities. Poverty is generating heterogenous social dynamics exerting serious pressures on land use policies, investments on environmental infrastructure and in conclusion on the social protection coverage in the city.
To what extent do green infrastructure and blue-green interventions help mitigate UHI effects for vulnerable communities in these cities? Are there best practices that London could learn from Seoul and Shenzhen?
Green and blue infrastructure helps to decrease the local temperature, reduce the levels of atmospheric pollution and offer important social, economic and environmental advantages to the local population. I don’t believe that London must learn something from the Asian cities.
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