Climate Friendly Urban Green Areas: Roadside Green Spaces in Sakarya/Turkey

Abstract

The role of urban green areas to adapt climate change impacts has been emphasized globally as urbanization is a very common fact around the world. This issue has been addressed by the sustainable development goals, several studies also underlined that sustainable urban planning is a crucial issue to enable more livable cities. The most natural and sustainable solution is to benefit green spaces with specific landscape design approaches including xeriscape. In this study we focus on roadside green spaces in an industrialized city. Traffic islands have been assessed based on the share of hardscape and green parts together with plant species and their irrigation specifications. The irrigation requirements have been analyzed by using a potential evapotranspiration method which is Blaney Criddle equation. The need for irrigation and the influence of the roadside green spaces as an adaptation tool emerge as a controversial situation in case of low water resources. We analyzed water needs of current plantation and irrigation systems and came out with a conclusion that xeriscape practices like mulching, use of xeric plants and grey water has a good potential to optimize water usage, mitigate urban heat island effect and support adaptation to the climate change.