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The Urban Heat Island Effect

Planning of your suburb took the Urban Heat Island Effect into consideration. Light coloured roofs are encouraged throughout Ginninderry, which allows heat to be reflected and not absorbed within houses. Our planners worked hard to ensure that the canopies of the trees planted throughout the suburb would eventually meet to shade the road, preventing the sun from heating up this surface during our long, hot summers.

Did You Know?

The Urban Heat Island Effect refers to the way pavements, roads and buildings absorb the sun’s heat and radiate it back day and night, increasing the temperature and stopping urban areas from cooling down. This can be felt in Summer time especially.

In 2017 The CSIRO published a report commissioned by the ACT Government exploring the impact of the Urban Heat Island Effect in Canberra. The report found that Canberra as a city is around 8C warmer in summer and 6C warmer in winter than its surrounding rural areas. Areas with large expanses of impervious surfaces (such as rooftops, carparks and concreted areas) were much warmer again – sometimes up to 4-11C hotter than the Canberra average! These sorts of surfaces are often found in commercial and industrial areas, along major roads and intersections and in new housing developments.

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