The Influence of Historic Landscape Principles on Contemporary Urban Green Infrastructure in Hot-Arid Climates: Insights from Chahar Bagh Boulevard in Isfahan, Iran
Kholida Alisher Qizi Akramova & Akhtam Sindarovich Uralov
Abstract
Kholida Alisher Qizi Akramova & Akhtam Sindarovich Uralov
Abstract
Ensuring thermal comfort in urban open spaces under hot-arid climatic conditions is a pressing priority for climate-responsive urban planning and the development of green infrastructure. High summer temperatures, intense solar radiation and limited water resources necessitate climate-adaptive approaches to the design of public space. This study examines the landscape-ecological and urban-planning characteristics of Chahar Bagh Boulevard, established in Isfahan during the Safavid period, and investigates how the integration of its historic spatial structure, tree plantations, water system, green spaces, pedestrian routes and public functions contributed to microclimatic comfort under hot-arid conditions. The study is conceived as a conceptual, documentary-synthesis contribution rather than an empirical field study: it adopts a historical-documentary and comparative case-study approach. Historical sources, cartographic materials and published scholarly literature on the historical formation, spatial structure and microclimatic performance of Chahar Bagh were collected, systematised according to seven analytical indicators, and comparatively examined; no original fieldwork, on-site measurement or digital modelling was undertaken by the authors, and the microclimatic evidence discussed is drawn from previously published modelling studies. The synthesis indicates that the climatic performance attributed to Chahar Bagh in the literature is explained less by individual landscape elements than by the integration of tree cover, water systems, pedestrian space and public activity into a coherent spatial-functional system. Rather than replicating the historical form of Chahar Bagh, adapting its principles of passive climatic responsiveness and landscape organisation to contemporary conditions is identified as the more defensible approach. These case-specific principles provide a starting point for further, locally grounded research on climate-responsive landscape strategies in hot-arid cities such as Samarkand.
Keywords:
Chahar Bagh; Isfahan; hot-arid climate; green infrastructure; thermal comfort; historic landscape, Iran.