What is Green Cover?

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‘Green cover’ refers to a broad range of strategies to integrate green, permeable and reflective surfaces into cities and towns, which are home to 89 percent of our population.

Surface temperatures in urban areas can be 10°C to 20°C higher than in the air temperatures because buildings, roads, and other hard surfaces absorb and store heat. High temperatures, due to climate change, will further intensify the impacts of urban heat.

Unlike hard surfaces, trees and vegetation (sometimes called green infrastructure) provide shade, and cool and clean the air by evapotranspiration. Other benefits are better health and wellbeing for urban-dwellers, more biodiversity and wildlife in urban areas, and better regulation of localized flooding.

Types of urban green cover include bushland, private and community gardens, parks, greenways, habitat corridors, street trees, roof gardens, and plant-covered walls, as well as reflective and permeable walls, pavements and other surfaces. Protecting local green spaces, designing eco-friendly buildings and creating urban networks of green space can help to minimize the impacts of urban heat in our cities and towns.