Australia: How will Synthetic turf impact urban heat island and microclimate around Hosken Reserve?

 

Adding a synthetic pitch to Hosken Reserve will increase the Urban Heat Island Effect (UHIE), reduce the Cool Park effect, and be felt mostly strongly by local residents. Artificial turf elevated temperatures will affect playability and heat stress to players, and not only in Summer but also for warm days in both Spring and Autumn when the temperature is elevated. Our Melbourne summers are getting longer.

For the most part it is local residents that would need to live with this permanent impact on increased microclimate temperatures over summer months and during warmer days in Spring and Autumn. Urban Heat island effect is more prominent during the night than during the day. This will likely increase evening energy use from air conditioners of local residents which will have a feedback of putting more heat back into the local environment.

Our temperature research at Hosken Reserve natural grass oval and Clifton Park synthetic pitch shows on a warm day (around 30C as per BOM records) the surface temperatures on the synthetic pitch are regularly 80-90 percent greater than natural grass, and may on occasion reach double the temperature of grass.

Moreland’s heat vulnerability is already at a high level, synthetic turf will contribute more heat when we need to be trying to cool our suburbs through green infrastructure. Moreland Council needs to find cooling solutions not exacerbate the problem with converting a much loved community shared grass oval to a fenced synthetic pitch...

https://climateactionmoreland.org/2021/04/03/how-will-synthetic-turf-impact-urban-heat-island-and-microclimate-around-hosken-reserve/?fbclid=IwAR0IqXoyvSEXZJYbmdZnTxJYEZwRmcI8dcCCdMO9YTaeQG-lN8kxbK9BNU8