Journal of Sustainable Urban & Regional Development Studies (JSURDS)

Abstract Abstract
This research aimed to investigate the role and function of green infrastructure in realizing a sustainable smart city in District 6 of Tehran, a region that faces serious challenges in ecological management and achieving urban sustainability due to high building density, lack of green space, high energy consumption, and environmental pressures. The main issue of the research was how to improve the environmental performance and resilience of this region by strengthening green infrastructure and utilizing smart technologies, and what indicators have the greatest impact in this process. Given the environmental and structural limitations of District 6, the need to create a link between technology, urban management, and ecology is increasingly felt. The research is applied in terms of purpose and descriptive-analytical in terms of methodology with a quantitative approach.The statistical population consisted of 40 specialists, experts, and managers in the field of smart city and urban environment who were selected purposefully. The data collection tool was a researcher-made questionnaire, and for data analysis, Cronbach's alpha and KMO were used to measure reliability and sampling adequacy, exploratory factor analysis to identify conceptual dimensions, Pearson correlation to determine relationships between indicators, and linear regression to determine the effect of each factor on the dependent variable. The results showed that the management and technology dimension plays the greatest role in explaining the sustainable smart city in Region 6, and indicators such as data mining, smart sensors, and smart water resource management have the highest impact. After that, the ecological dimension, including heat island reduction, ecological design, and runoff management, comes in second place, indicating the importance of environmental infrastructure in dense areas of the city.In contrast, the socio-economic dimension and citizen participation received the least weight, indicating the weakness of software structures and the need to empower the local community. Overall, the research emphasizes that achieving a sustainable smart city in Region 6 requires the simultaneous integration of smart technologies, ecological infrastructure, and social participation

Abstract Background and Aim: Urban heat islands (UHIs) are a growing concern in metropolitan areas, leading to temperature differences between urban centers and surrounding areas due to various ecological, morphological, topographical, and demographic factors. Major Iranian cities have undergone rapid land-use transformations and expanding urbanization, facing the challenge of UHIs.
Methods:  This study investigates UHIs in Tabriz, focusing on District 1, Neighborhood 1 as the first area and District 6, Neighborhood 4 as the second area. The study employed Landsat 8 remote sensing images to analyze UHIs in Tabriz, Iran. The images were acquired for the summer season, representing the period of maximum UHI intensity. The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) was calculated to assess vegetation cover, while land surface temperature (LST) was derived using the single-channel algorithm. Morphological indicators were extracted from OpenStreetMap data.
Findings and Conclusion: The study aims to extract, locate, and analyze UHIs in the study area using specific formulas and prepare relevant maps, focusing on ecological and morphological indicators. The minimum and maximum temperatures in District 1 were 15.88°C and 37.65°C, respectively, while in District 6, they were 24.11°C and 40.87°C. Analyzing the extracted maps based on the selected ecological indicators (vegetation cover, wind, solar radiation, and elevation) and morphological indicators (building height, building density, building façade, and building roofs) in both districts, we concluded that District 1 is cooler due to several factors: higher elevation, better reception of prevailing northeastern winds, more suitable street orientations, lower building heights (mostly one-story), and a higher prevalence of reflective roofs compared to District 6. Although District 6 has better vegetation cover and lower building density.