Accurate quantification of the heat mitigation capacity of urban greenspaces is essential in planning decisions due to increased thermal pressures on existing and new urban environments associated with climate change. However, this often requires data analytical skillsets that may not be available to the planning community. The recently developed InVEST 3.8.7 Urban Cooling model addresses this limitation by using several easily accessible parameters, assigned to a land cover map, to produce a heat mitigation index (HMI) intended to estimate the cooling capacity of vegetation in a spatial context. In this study, we validated the HMI derived for three towns with differing morphologies by comparison to land surface temperature (LST) data using linear regression analysis. We found that the HMI can be used to explain a variable proportion of the variation in LST, with R² ranging from 0.48 to 0.64 depending on the town, with stronger associations obtained for towns with a higher range of LST values. Higher resemblance to LST data was achieved after resampling of the 2 m resolution model outputs to 30 m resolution, inclusion of water bodies as cooling features, and using cooling distance away from large greenspaces of 100 m. On average, a change in the HMI of 0.1 was associated with 0.76 °C change in LST. We conclude that the model is suitable for assessment of heat mitigation interventions through incorporation of vegetation and water bodies into city plans at scales relevant to masterplans rather than fine-tuning of urban design.

由于与气候变化相关的现有和新城市环境的热压力增加，因此准确量化城市绿地的热缓解能力对于规划决策至关重要。然而，这通常需要规划社区可能无法获得的数据分析技能。最近开发的 InVEST 3.8.7 Urban Cooling 模型通过使用几个易于访问的参数（分配给土地覆盖图）来生成热缓解指数 (HMI)，旨在估计空间环境中植被的冷却能力，从而解决了这一限制。在这项研究中，我们通过使用线性回归分析与地表温度 (LST) 数据进行比较，验证了三个不同形态城镇的 HMI。²范围从 0.48 到 0.64，具体取决于城镇，对于具有更高 LST 值范围的城镇获得更强的关联。在将 2 m 分辨率模型输出重采样到 30 m 分辨率、将水体作为冷却特征并使用远离 100 m 大绿地的冷却距离后，实现了与 LST 数据的更高相似性。平均而言，HMI 的 0.1 变化与 LST 的 0.76 °C 变化相关。我们得出的结论是，该模型适用于通过将植被和水体以与总体规划相关的规模而不是城市设计的微调纳入城市规划来评估热缓解干预措施。