Urban heating, lack of green and lack of space: proposal of a new green factor for the city of São Paulo

• Grant number: 23/03279-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Doctorate
• Start date: October 02, 2023
• End date: October 01, 2024
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Architecture and Town Planning - Architecture and Urbanism Technology
• Principal Investigator: Denise Helena Silva Duarte
• Grantee: Luiza Sobhie Muñoz
• Supervisor: Rohinton Emmanuel
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo (FAU). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU), Scotland
• Associated to the scholarship: 21/04751-7 - Urban heating, lack of green and lack of space: proposals for urban redesign to adapt to climate change at the microscale in the city of São Paulo, BP.DR

Abstract

The world is experiencing the climate emergency, which is responsible for some extreme events, such as the increase in temperature, heavy rains and droughts. At the urban scale, the suppression of urban vegetation and the increase in built density and impervious surfaces are one of the main factors for the aggravation of local climate change effects. Thus, the presence of vegetation throughout the urban fabric is an imperative strategy to tackle and to adapt to all these environmental issues. Especially for the private areas, the green factors are the main urban planning strategy to ensure the presence of vegetation. Cities like London, Seattle, Malmo, Washington, Singapore, Vancouver and Helsinki have developed and applied this urban planning strategy, inspired mainly by the pioneer Berlin's Biotope Area Factor (BAF). The city of São Paulo has a local urban instrument called "Environmental Quota", in force as part of the Zoning Law since 2016, but its efficiency is limited, since it's focused only on new constructions on private lots with an area equal or greater than 500 m², which represents approximately 8% of the lots and 53,1% of the total area of urban lots. In this context, the objective of this internship project is to develop a new and more adequate green factor for São Paulo, which considers morphological - site coverage and floor area ratio - and ecological - Ecosystem Services - parameters. For Sao Paulo, taking into consideration the built density, including the floor area ratio, is an absolute need, given that the green factors found on the literature, mentioned above and except for Singapore, only consider the plot area. For this, the current Green Factors will be studied and available secondary data of the LCZs classification produced by the same research group for São Paulo will be used. In addition to the scientific impact, the results will be able to support public policies to improve the São Paulo Zoning Law (LPUOS, 2016) and the São Paulo Climate Plan (SÃO PAULO, 2021) revisions and implementation. (AU)