Socio-ecological inequality in heat: The role of green infrastructure in a subtropical city context

Urban green infrastructure is central to integrated climate responses linking ecosystem services and social equity within urban planning for extreme heat in cities. This study examines the extent to which temperature regulating services from green infrastructure influence electricity consumption along with socio-economic gradient across urban neighbourhoods of Taipei Basin, Taiwan. Socio-ecological inequality was found to follow a complicated pattern, whereby green polarisation was revealed - both privileged and deprived neighbourhoods had greener and cooler environments. Yet, household salary was a more important factor for determining the increase of electricity consumption in summer than environmental attributes of greenspace proportion, distance to waters and temperature. Indigenous populations were socio-economically more disadvantaged, but they tended to receive greater cooling services from semi-natural areas and increased electricity usage less in summer. Neighbourhoods with a higher female proportion of population were less green, but socio-economically more privileged. In line with this spatial pattern, this study draws attention to the need to take various kinds of green infrastructure into account in a heat adaptation plan, and prioritise greening initiatives in areas which are subject to joint disparity in natural cooling services and economic capacity for house cooling.