The “plant evaluation model” for the assessment of the impact of vegetation on outdoor microclimate in the urban environment

Yang, Yu; Gatto, Elisa; Gao, Zhi; Buccolieri, Riccardo; Morakinyo, Tobi Eniolu; Lan, Hongning

doi:10.1016/j.buildenv.2019.05.029

Cited by 92 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…Specifically, vegetation provides transpirational cooling because the absorbed solar energy causes an increase of latent heat (water from vegetation is evaporated into the atmosphere) thus cooling the leaf surfaces and the air around them. These processes are usually modelled by means of a volumetric cooling power per unit volume vegetation as a function of the leaf area density (LAD) [27][28][29]. In addition, the presence of vegetation increases the overall short-wave reflectivity of the city.…”

Section: Thermal Comfort and Vegetationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of Urban Vegetation on Outdoor Thermal Comfort: Comparison between a Mediterranean City (Lecce, Italy) and a Northern European City (Lahti, Finland)

Gatto

Buccolieri

Aarrevaara

et al. 2020

Forests

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This paper is devoted to the application of the modelling approach, as one of the methods for the evaluation of thermal comfort, to neighborhoods located in two cities characterized by a different climate, i.e., a Mediterranean city in southern Italy (Lecce) and a northern European city in southern Finland (Lahti). The impact of the presence of vegetation in both places is evaluated and compared, further considering alternative scenarios for thermal comfort improvement. The thermal comfort condition is expressed in terms of indices (mean radiant temperature (MRT) and predicted mean vote (PMV)). Results show that at pedestrian level the presence of vegetation lead to an improvement of thermal comfort in summer of about 2 points in both neighborhoods. This improvement is also evident observing the spatial distribution of MRT with a difference of 7 °C in the Lecce neighborhood and 3 °C in Lahti. In winter, thermal discomfort is observed in the presence of vegetation with a difference of 1.3 °C in the Lecce neighborhood and 1.5 °C in Lahti in terms of MRT. However, trees and green cover have the important potential to offset climate change impact and to make urban environments less thermally stressful. This study aims to guide urban planners towards a motivated and necessary transaction towards new green infrastructure whose effect should, however, be analyzed and investigated case by case.

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Section: Thermal Comfort and Vegetationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of Urban Vegetation on Outdoor Thermal Comfort: Comparison between a Mediterranean City (Lecce, Italy) and a Northern European City (Lahti, Finland)

Gatto

Buccolieri

Aarrevaara

et al. 2020

Forests

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“…As for thermal comfort, it can be evaluated by means of field and laboratory measurements, questionnaires, and numerical modeling. Commonly used simulation tools are based on two methods, namely the Energy Balance Models (EBM) and the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) approaches [7]. Torparlar et al [8] reviewed the application of CFD method in the study of urban physical environment and pointed out that the CFD method is by now relatively mature in the fields of "wind field of buildings, wind comfort of pedestrian area, thermal comfort of pedestrian area, wind-driven rain and snow, pollutant diffusion".…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Numerical Study on the Correlation between Sky View Factor and Summer Microclimate of Local Climate Zones

2019

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In the context of urbanization, research on urban microclimate and thermal comfort has become one of the themes of eco-city design. Sky view factor (SVF), one of the parameters of urban spatial form, combines multiple morphological information, such as plane opening, aspect ratio, and building density and has an important impact on the urban microclimate. However, there is still no clear research conclusion on the correlation between SVF and microclimate. In this paper, nine Local Climate Zone (LCZ) models are used and typical summer meteorological conditions of Nanjing are applied as an attempt to partially fill this gap. The calculated microclimate and thermal comfort indices include air temperature (AT), surface temperature (ST), relative humidity (RH), wind speed (WS), mean radiant temperature (MRT), and predicted mean vote (PMV). Results show that the local effect of urban morphology on thermal comfort can be retrieved from the use of comprehensive parameters such as SVF (which takes into account the building height, layout, and density) whose distribution in the investigated models showed to be correlated with MRT, so did PMV under low wind speed conditions.

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“…Using both GIS tools and CitySim Pro some investigation on the relation between urban shape and energy heating demands have been done by Mutani et al [26]. For the evaluation of outdoor urban thermal comfort ENVImet was used in this works, it is able to analyze the local climate take into account effects of vegetation on atmosphere, radiation, and soil [27]. Moreover, ENVI-met can calculate many parameters, like: air temperature, vapor pressure, relative humidity, wind velocity and mean radiant temperature useful for evaluation at neighborhood scale.…”

Section: Tools For Urban Energy Analysesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Low-Energy Architecture for Sustainable Neighborhoods

Todeschi¹,

Beltramino²,

Jamous³

et al. 2021

TI-IJES

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Nowadays, energy consumption in buildings is one of the fundamental drivers to control greenhouse gas emissions and environmental impact. In fact, the air quality of urban environments can cause two main phenomena in metropolitan areas: urban heat island and climate changes. The aim of this work is to showcase how different building variables can impact the residential building’s space heating and cooling energy consumption. Buildings energy-related variables can be fundamental viewpoints to improve the energy performance of neighborhoods, especially in future urban planning. This work examines four neighborhoods in the city of Turin (IT): Arquata, Crocetta, Sacchi, and Olympic Village characterized by different morphologies and building typologies. In each neighborhood, residential building was grouped according to orientations and construction periods. A sensitivity analysis was applied by analysing six building variables: infiltration rate, window-to-wall ratio, and windows, walls, roofs, and floor thermal transmittances. The energy consumption for space heating and cooling of residential buildings and local climate conditions were investigated using CitySim Pro tool and ENVI-met. The challenge of this work is to identify the building variables that most influence energy consumption and to understand how to promote high-energy efficiency neighborhoods: the goal is to identify the “ideal” urban form with low consumption and good comfort conditions in outdoor urban environments. The results of this work show a significant connection between the energy consumption and the six analyzed building variables; however, this relationship also depends on the shape and orientation of the neighborhood.

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The “plant evaluation model” for the assessment of the impact of vegetation on outdoor microclimate in the urban environment

Cited by 92 publications

References 49 publications

Impact of Urban Vegetation on Outdoor Thermal Comfort: Comparison between a Mediterranean City (Lecce, Italy) and a Northern European City (Lahti, Finland)

Impact of Urban Vegetation on Outdoor Thermal Comfort: Comparison between a Mediterranean City (Lecce, Italy) and a Northern European City (Lahti, Finland)

A Numerical Study on the Correlation between Sky View Factor and Summer Microclimate of Local Climate Zones

Low-Energy Architecture for Sustainable Neighborhoods

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