How Los Angeles' Urban Parks Battle Climate Change
An overview of how Los Angeles County’s Department of Parks and Recreation is creating projects that tackle the effects of climate change, by planner Clement Lau.
Those hoping to minimize the effects of climate change must not overlook local urban parks as an important tool in the effort.
Clement Lau, a Los Angeles County planner, discusses how communities can use local and regional parks for carbon sequestration and to offset the urban heat island effect.
“Parks are the first and best line of defense against the urban heat island effect, and its mostly negative consequences of modified temperature, precipitation, wind, and air quality patterns. In particular, urban parks cool and clean the air, improve and modify local wind circulations, and better regulate precipitation patterns.”
Lau highlights various park projects the Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Recreation ((DPR) has in the works and has completed to help ease the effects of climate change.
“…DPR has been proactively and progressively addressing these challenges through its planning, design,construction, and renovation projects and practices.”
Clement also lists numerous reference documents and manuals used by Los Angeles County but helpful to any municipality in designing their parks for maximum climate change impact.
Full Story:
Published on Tuesday, July 29, 2014 in
Topics
- California
- Environment
- Climate Change
- Community Parks and Recreation Plans
- Global Warming
- Greenhouse Gas Emissions
- LEED
- Los Angeles County
- Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Recreation
- Parks
- Smart Controllers
- Smart Growth
- Sustainability
- Transit
- Trees
- Urban Forest
- Urban Forestry
- Urban Heat Island
- Urbanism
- The Biggest Highway Boondoggles in the United States
- Single-Family Zoning Versus the City, Mapped
- Breaking News: Google to Spend $1 Billion on Housing in the Bay Area
- The Environmental Costs of Slow, Empty Buses
- Revealed: New Plans for San Francisco's Waterfront
- Immigration and Urban Growth
- More Skyscrapers Coming Soon to New York City's Skyline
- Measuring Job Densification Trends in U.S. Metropolitan Areas
- An Investigation of the Nation's Increasing Number of Pedestrian Fatalities
- Understanding Cities Through Their Life Cycles
- Details on the Portland Region's Proposed $2.7 Billion Light Rail Line
- Madrid’s Bold Car Ban May Become a Thing of the Past
- Breaking News: Master Plan for Quayside 'Smart City' Released by Sidewalk Labs and Waterfront Toronto
- Carbon Neutrality: What Does it Mean, and Is it Possible?
- Boulders to Replace Rose Bushes in ODOT Effort to Inconvenience the Homeless
- Public Outcry Greets Plan to Connect L.A. to Pasadena via Bus Rapid Transit
- Strong Reactions to New York Rent Control Changes
- APA Disappointed With Supreme Court's Decision in Takings Case
- When Low-Income Riders Get Reduced Fares, They Ride More Transit
- How 3D Printing and Modeling Are Revolutionizing Urban Planning
