Nature-based Solutions for Urban Heat Mitigation and Implementation Path Thereof: A Case Study of Beijing

Nowadays, human life and health is under threat of urban heat island and high temperature heat wave. Nature-based Solutions (NbS) can not only effectively address social challenges for improved human well-being, but also contribute to biodiversity protection and regional sustainable development. This research firstly discusses the urban heat mitigation solutions under the framework of NbS from the following aspects: 1) priority identification of key areas in response to social challenges of urban heat island and heat wave; 2) design of heat mitigation solutions based on appropriate scale in combination with ecosystem integrity improvement; 3) economic feasibility, inclusive governance, adaptive management, mainstreaming and sustainability of heat mitigation solutions. After that, the research takes Beijing as an example to explore the design and implementation path of NbS for urban heat mitigation. The results show that the urban heat island effect is quite obvious in the area within the Fifth Ring Road of Beijing, and the land surface temperature (LST) within the area shows the most stable response to the characteristic changes of such land cover forms as vegetation and impervious surface at 600 m × 600 m grid cells; heat units are mainly distributed in the south of the aforesaid area, in which the landscape elements are featured by centralized and contiguous buildings and impervious surfaces, and scattered bare lands and green-blue space patches. Adaptive heat mitigation measures shall be taken for different heat units. For example, urban forest park should be adopted for the heat unit of scattered bare lands, vertical greening for the heat unit of large low-rise buildings, alternated greening for small low-rise buildings, and greenway construction for traffic. This research is expected to provide scientific basis and technical reference of NbS for urban heat migration.