Urban heat island, otherwise abbreviated as UHI is a metropolitan space/area that is significantly warmer than its surrounding rural areas as a result of human activities. This change in temperature is most noticeable during the summer and winter. A number of human related activities have been implicated as the factors responsible for this UHI waste heat generation by energy usage modification of land surface are but afew of them, some more of these factors will be outlined subsequently in the following subsector, "mitigation".

MITIGATION

As earlier defined, UHI is the scenario arising with a difference in temperature between an urban area and its surrounding rural communities. This change in temperature can be as much as 5 degrees celcius, which has been as a result of people's preference to dark roofs, dark coloured pavements and also due to declining vegetation in the urban areas.

Now to counteract this menace, it is very much important to note the following points

1. Reverting to the usage of white/reflective materials to build houses, roofs, pavements and roads which would help in increasing the overall albedo (the amount of sunlight reflected back into the atmosphere).

2. The usage of green roofs and increasing the amount of well watered vegetation are otgerbvery important options to consider, these green roofs play the role of insulating during the warm weather and the vegetation also helps in cooling the environment.

3. Green parking lots: such parking lots help in reducing the reflection of Sundays into the atmosphere, and also use some.of these ray(energy) for man's benefit.

4. Finally, it's again vital to ensure we plant more trees, which will aid in the increase of albedo and as already known of trees, they can provide shade, reduce carbon dioxide concentrations and ultimately decrease the urban heat island.