Urbana värmeöar i Malmö : Orsaker, konsekvenser och möjliga lösningar på urbana värmeöar

Sammanfattning

Urban heat island is a new phenomena that during the past few years has emerged as a more relevant topic within the Swedish urban planning context. The purpose of this essay is to analyze how Malmö City works to map and counteract urban heat islands as well as presenting what further can and should be done in relation to urban heat islands in the future. The essay presents public documents available from Malmö City and shows how the city has identified the problem and what is being done to mitigate it. The city’s future hopes and the work that is being done, but not presented in public documents, is also presented in the essay. The study shows that Malmö City as well as us have identified that heat islands exist in Malmö and that they tend to occur within industrial areas. There are even some tools, such as green area factor (grönytefaktor) that are used by the city to attempt to mitigate heat islands through implementing physical changes. The essay also presents an analysis of heat islands in Malmö done by us where we present how urban heat islands can be defined and what causes its spread with help from the literature review. Within our own analysis areas that have been identified as heat islands are presented and site visits are performed in these areas. The areas are Hamnens industrial area, Fosieby industrial area, and Bulltofta industrial area. The essay uses a mix of methods that is based on interviews, document analysis, data analysis based on mapping and statistics, and site visits to better understand the environment of the selected areas. Interviews were conducted with environmental strategists from Malmö and Stockholm City in order to give a deeper understanding for how Malmö City works in relation to the issue as well as understanding what can be done further through gaining inspiration from Stockholm City, which is one of the leading cities in Sweden in regards to the subject. Document analysis is also a method used to build a better overview of how Malmö City views and are working on the issue. The site visits and data analysis were used to get a deeper understanding for how the places are formed and identify what needs to be done. The results show that urban heat islands are a widespread problem that exists in Malmö’s industrial areas. Urban heat islands show to be highly connected to the amount of hard surface, greenery, and the characteristics of the city in the same way as is explained in the literature review. The essay also shows the difficulties with working to mitigate urban heat islands in Sweden, something that occurs due to several different reasons. Today, the guidelines are unclear and there is no law that requires cities to mitigate urban heat islands. All of the work being done by cities today is a result of their own initiative to work with the problem. Unclear definitions for what a heat island is also causes challenges for identifying and mapping the problem. Malmö city is actively working to mitigate urban heat islands through several different methods. Raising awareness and implementing physical changes is at the foundation of this work. The essay also writes about possible policy changes that can be done to simplify the work with mitigating urban heat islands.