Abstract
The impacts of extreme heat in Seoul, Korea, are expected to increase in frequency and magnitude in response to global warming, necessitating certain adaptation strategies. However, there is a lack of knowledge of adaptation strategies that would be able to reduce the impacts of extreme heat to cope with an uncertain future, especially on the local scale. In this study, we aimed to determine the effect of adaptation strategies to reduce the mortality risk under two climate change mitigation scenarios, using Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) 2.6 and 8.5. We selected four street-level adaptation strategies: Green walls, sidewalk greenways, reduced-albedo sidewalks and street trees. As an extreme heat assessment criterion, we used a pedestrian mean radiant temperature threshold, which was strongly related to heat mortality. The results, projected to the 2050s, showed that green walls, greenways and reduced-albedo sidewalks could adequately reduce the extreme heat impacts under RCP2.6; however, only street trees could reduce the extreme heat impacts under RCP8.5 in the 2050s. This implies that required adaptation strategies can vary depending on the targeted scenario. This study was conducted using one street in Seoul, but the methodology can be expanded to include other adaptation strategies, and applied to various locations to help stakeholders decide on effective adaptation options and make local climate change adaptation plans.
Highlights
Climate change is expected to increase extreme temperature and precipitation events [1], which impacts diverse sectors, including public health, infrastructure, and agriculture [2]
We analyzed the impact of climate change based RCP2.6 and RCP8.5 to compare the differences in the effect of adaptation strategies under these two mitigation scenarios
The different effects of these adaptation strategies depending on the climate change mitigation scenario at the local scale were compared
Summary
Climate change is expected to increase extreme temperature and precipitation events [1], which impacts diverse sectors, including public health, infrastructure, and agriculture [2]. In 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a special report on the global warming limit of 1.5 ◦C, which stressed that the global mean temperature should be maintained within 1.5 ◦C above pre-industrial levels. The IPCC further noted that ambitious mitigation actions are indispensable to limit warming to 1.5 ◦C [4]. Without such mitigation actions, the substantial global impacts of climate change will not be inevitable [5]. The degree of mitigation efforts undertaken will result in different degrees of the impact of climate change
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