The urban heat island (UHI) effect poses a serious challenge in rapidly urbanizing regions, where climate change intensifies heat accumulation and undermines public health and energy stability. This study develops a simulation-based optimization frame...
The urban heat island (UHI) effect poses a serious challenge in rapidly urbanizing regions, where climate change intensifies heat accumulation and undermines public health and energy stability. This study develops a simulation-based optimization framework for UHI mitigation in Ho Chi Minh City, a designated smart city pilot that has experienced severe thermal stress in recent decades. The analysis is grounded in the author’s patented Green Infrastructure Placement System for Mitigating Urban Heat Island Effects (Patent Application No. 10-2025-0026423), which enables a spatially explicit assessment of three major interventions: green roofs, green walls, and street trees. The framework integrates economic cost, cooling performance, and carbon reduction potential by combining satellite-derived datasets, empirical parameter estimates, and on-site observations conducted between August 25 and September 2, 2025. Thermal and vegetation indices from Landsat 8 and Sentinel-2 were analyzed using Google Earth Engine (GEE), while QGIS and Python were employed to preprocess spatial data and implement a multi-objective optimization using the Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm II (NSGA-II). This approach identifies Pareto-efficient portfolios that balance fiscal feasibility with ecological effectiveness, reflecting realistic trade-offs between cost, cooling, and carbon benefits. Optimization results revealed distinct spatial advantages across interventions. Green roofs were most effective in Tan Binh, District 3, and District 10, where dense, flat-roofed structures facilitate large-scale installations. Green walls were concentrated in Thu Duc City and Districts 7 and 8, where vertical façades provide high exposure and shading potential. Street trees were prioritized along main corridors in Districts 1, 4, and Binh Thanh, where impervious coverage and traffic density amplify the need for local cooling. Field validation confirmed strong alignment between the simulated outputs and actual structural conditions, demonstrating the robustness of the framework. By integrating remote sensing, optimization modeling, and empirical fieldwork, this study contributes a decision-support tool for urban climate governance. Beyond its technical contributions, it links localized UHI mitigation with global climate adaptation and development cooperation agendas, offering practical guidance for data-driven, equitable, and sustainable urban transformation in heat-vulnerable cities such as Ho Chi Minh City.