Correlation between cooling effect of green space and surrounding urban spatial form: Evidence from 36 urban green spaces

The deterioration of the urban thermal environment has attracted increasing attention from scholars all over the world. A large number of studies show that green space in cities can alleviate the heat island effect. Taking the urban spatial characteristics around 36 green spaces in Xi’an as the main research object, this study explores the impact of urban spatial indicators such as building density (BD) and building floor area ratio (BFR) on the cooling effect of green spaces. Results show the significant correlation between BD and BFR around the green space and the cooling effect of green space. Among these indicators, when the BD is between 0.25 and 0.3, the green space can reach the maximum temperature drop range. When the BFR is between 2.5 and 3.0, the green space can achieve the best cooling effect. In addition, the relative position between the surrounding area and green space affects the cooling effect of the green space, which has the most obvious cooling effect when it is located on the north side.