scholarly journals The Temporal Variation of the Microclimate and Human Thermal Comfort in Urban Wetland Parks: A Case Study of Xixi National Wetland Park, China

Forests ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (10) ◽  
pp. 1322
Author(s):  
Zhiyong Zhang ◽  
Jianhua Dong ◽  
Qijiang He ◽  
Bing Ye
Keyword(s):  
Thermal Comfort ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Temporal Variations ◽  
Cold Season ◽  
Scientific Data ◽  
Cold Weather ◽  
Recreational Activities ◽  
Human Thermal Comfort ◽  
Island Effect ◽  
Urban Wetland

As an important part of the ecological infrastructure in urban areas, urban wetland parks have the significant ecological function of relieving the discomfort of people during their outdoor activities. In recent years, the specific structures and ecosystem services of urban wetland parks have been investigated from different perspectives. However, the microclimate and human thermal comfort (HTC) of urban wetland parks have rarely been discussed. In particular, the changing trends of HTC in different seasons and times have not been effectively presented. Accordingly, in this research, a monitoring platform was established in Xixi National Wetland Park, China, to continually monitor its microclimate in the long term. Via a comparison with a control site in the downtown area of Hangzhou, China, the temporal variations of the microclimate and HTC in the urban wetland park are quantified, and suggestions for clothing are also provided. The results of this study demonstrate that urban wetland parks can mitigate the heat island effect and dry island effect in summer. In addition, urban wetland parks can provide ecological services at midday during winter to mitigate the cold island effect. More importantly, urban wetland parks are found to exhibit their best performance in improving HTC during the daytime of the hot season and the midday period of the cold season. Finally, the findings of this study suggest that citizens should take protective measures and enjoy their activities in the morning, evening, or at night, not at midday in hot weather. Moreover, extra layers are suggested to be worn before going to urban wetland parks at night in cold weather, and recreational activities involving accommodation are not recommended. These findings provide not only basic scientific data for the assessment of the management and ecological health value of Xixi National Wetland Park and other urban wetland parks with subtropical monsoon climates, but also a reference for visitor timing and clothing suggestions for recreational activities.

Development, validation, and demonstration of the VTUF-3D v1.0 urban micro-climate model to support assessments of urban vegetation influences on human thermal comfort

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kerry Nice
Keyword(s):  
Thermal Comfort ◽  
Urban Environment ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Canopy Cover ◽  
Individual Tree ◽  
New Model ◽  
Human Thermal Comfort ◽  
Physiological Processes ◽  
The Impact

With urban areas facing future longer duration heat-waves and temperature extremes from climate change and growing urban development, adaptation strategies are needed. Examining the role that increased tree cover and water availability can have on human thermal comfort (HTC) in urban areas as part of these strategies has been done using observations, but further work requires a modelling tool suited for this task. Sufficient model resolution is needed to resolve variables used to calculate HTC, as well as the ability to model the physiological processes of vegetation and their interaction with water and with the rest of the urban environment. The lack of such a model has been identified as a research gap in the urban climate area and has impaired the ability to fully examine the use of urban greenery and water for improved human thermal comfort. A new model, VTUF-3D (Vegetated Temperatures Of Urban Facets), addresses this gap by embedding the functionality of the MAESPA tree process model (Duursma & Medlyn 2012), that can model individual trees, vegetation, and soil components, within the TUF-3D (Krayenhoff & Voogt 2007) urban micro-climate model. An innovative tiling approach, allows the new model to account for important vegetative physiological processes and shading effects using configurable templates to allow representation of any type of vegetation or water sensitive design feature. The high resolution of VTUF-3D is sufficient to examine the processes that drive human thermal comfort (HTC). This allows detailed calculations of surface temperatures, mean radiant temperature (Tmrt), and a HTC index, the universal thermal climate index (UTCI), across an urban canyon. An extensive validation process, using three different observation data sets to validate a number of different and key aspects of the VTUF-3D model, has shown it performs well and is suitable for use to examine critical questions relating to the role of vegetation and water in the urban environment. A demonstration of the model using modelling scenarios of varying canopy cover shows that average peak daytime HTC improvements of 1◦C UTCI (and 2.3◦C UTCI) are possible in doubling (and quadrupling) existing street cover canopies, with localised effects under canopy cover approaching 5◦C UTCI. These scenarios also show the value of the existing canopy cover, as reductions and elimination of existing cover can create reductions in HTC of 2◦C UTCI. In addition, reductions in average air temperature (Ta) across urban canyons can differ by 1◦C between streets with differing canopy cover. After the development, validation, and demonstration of this new model, it is now possible to conduct further analysis to quantify the impact each individual tree can have on temperatures in urban canyons. Further, the model can help inform the optimal arrangement and quantity of trees to maximise temperature moderation effects and be used to generate best practices guidelines for urban greening.

scholarly journals Investigating the relationship between variation of greenhouse gases concentrations and humidex

2018 ◽  
Vol 74 ◽  
pp. 11004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anies Ma’rufatin ◽  
Haryoto Kusnoputranto ◽  
Kardono
Keyword(s):  
Greenhouse Gases ◽  
Thermal Comfort ◽  
Air Temperature ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Negative Relationship ◽  
Co2 Concentration ◽  
Comfort Level ◽  
Human Thermal Comfort ◽  
Ch4 Concentration ◽  
The Relationship

The increasing greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere contribute to increasing average temperature earth’s surface. This research investigated relationship between variation of GHGs and human thermal comfort based on humidity index (humidex). This study applied humidex, an indices to assess the thermal comfort. The analysis was done by examining the observational data from two different monitoring stations in Serpong and Bogor. The result showed that the average CO2 concentration per month ranged between 422 and 453 ppm in Serpong, whereas in Bogor the average CO2 concentration per month was 413-426 ppm. The average CH4 concentration per month variation in Serpong was 2.05-2.65 ppm. While in Bogor, the average CH4 concentration per month variation ranged between 1.92 and 2.08 ppm. The difference of GHGs concentration in each location might be influenced by meteorological parameters and environmental characteristics. The comfort level according to humidex in Serpong was 30.5-41.5 whereas in Bogor was 29.4-38.5. The correlation between GHGs concentration and air temperature in urban areas in both stations showed a significant and strong but negative relationship. The relationship between GHGs concentration and humidex was indirectly indicated by the relationship of GHGs concentration on air temperature as indicator of humidex.

Human thermal comfort in Local climate zones of Berlin

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ines Langer ◽  
Alexander Pasternack ◽  
Uwe Ulbrich
Keyword(s):  
Thermal Comfort ◽  
Urban Heat Island ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Heat Island ◽  
Climate Zones ◽  
Local Climate ◽  
Human Thermal Comfort ◽  
Local Climate Zones ◽  
Urban Heat ◽  
The City

<p>Urban areas show higher nocturnal temperature comparing to rural areas, which is denoted by urban heat island. This effect can intensify the impact of global warming in urban areas especially during heat waves, that leads to higher energy demand for cooling the building and higher thermal stress for residents.  </p><p>The aim of this study is to identify the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect during the heat spell 2018 and 2019 in order to calculated human thermal comfort for Berlin. Berlin, the capital city of Germany covers an area of 892km<sup>2</sup> and its population is growing, therefore more residential areas will be planned in future through higher building. The methodology of this research is to divide Berlin into Local Climate Zones (LCZ's) regarding the concept of Stewart & Oke (2012). Then to evaluate the accuracy of this concept using 30 microclimate stations. Estimating the magnitude of urban heat island and its seasonal changes in combination with human thermal perception in different LCZ during summer time is another objective of this research. </p><p>Ten LCZ's for Berlin were selected, as class 1 (compact high rise), class 3 (compact low rise), class 7 (lightweight low-rise), class C (bush, scrub), class E (bare rock or paved) and class F (bare soil or sand) don't exist in Berlin. Class A (dense trees) is with a fraction of 18.6% in a good agreement with the percentage of dense trees reported from the city administration of Berlin (18.4%), class G (water) has a coverage of 5.1% through our classification instead of 6.7% reported by the city administration. In summary, the LCZ 1-10 cover 59.3% (more than half) of the city area.</p><p>Regarding temperature measurements, which represent a hot summer day with calm wind and clear sky the difference of Local Climate Zones will be calculated and the temperature variability in every LCZ's regarding sky view factor values show the hot spot of the city.</p><p>The vulnerability of LCZ's to heat stress will be ranked and discussed regarding ventilation and other factors.</p><p> </p><p>Literature</p><p>Matzarakis, A. Mayer, H., Iziomon, M. (1999) Applications of a universal thermal index: Physiological equivalent temperature: Intern. J. of Biomet 43 (2), 76-84.</p><p>Stewart, I.D., Oke, T.R. (2012) Local climate zones for urban temperature studies. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc. 93 1879-1900. DOI: 10.1175/BAMS-D-11-00019.1.</p><p> </p>

Watering our cities

2012 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 2-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew M. Coutts ◽  
Nigel J. Tapper ◽  
Jason Beringer ◽  
Margaret Loughnan ◽  
Matthias Demuzere
Keyword(s):  
Thermal Comfort ◽  
Urban Design ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Urban Landscape ◽  
Heat Exposure ◽  
Climate Change Impacts ◽  
High Heat ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Surface Cooling ◽  
Human Thermal Comfort

Urban drainage infrastructure is generally designed to rapidly export stormwater away from the urban environment to minimize flood risk created by extensive impervious surface cover. This deficit is resolved by importing high-quality potable water for irrigation. However, cities and towns at times face water restrictions in response to drought and water scarcity. This can exacerbate heating and drying, and promote the development of unfavourable urban climates. The combination of excessive heating driven by urban development, low water availability and future climate change impacts could compromise human health and amenity for urban dwellers. This paper draws on existing literature to demonstrate the potential of Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) to help improve outdoor human thermal comfort in urban areas and support Climate Sensitive Urban Design (CSUD) objectives within the Australian context. WSUD provides a mechanism for retaining water in the urban landscape through stormwater harvesting and reuse while also reducing urban temperatures through enhanced evapotranspiration and surface cooling. Research suggests that WSUD features are broadly capable of lowering temperatures and improving human thermal comfort, and when integrated with vegetation (especially trees) have potential to meet CSUD objectives. However, the degree of benefit (the intensity of cooling and improvements to human thermal comfort) depends on a multitude of factors including local environmental conditions, the design and placement of the systems, and the nature of the surrounding urban landscape. We suggest that WSUD can provide a source of water across Australian urban environments for landscape irrigation and soil moisture replenishment to maximize the urban climatic benefits of existing vegetation and green spaces. WSUD should be implemented strategically into the urban landscape, targeting areas of high heat exposure, with many distributed WSUD features at regular intervals to promote infiltration and evapotranspiration, and maintain tree health.

scholarly journals THE EFFECT OF SPATIAL CONFIGURATION IN THE THERMAL AREA OF FORT ORANJE PUBLIC SPACE IN TERNATE CITY

2017 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 253-259 ◽  
Author(s):  
Asri A. MUHAMMAD ◽  
Firdawaty MARASABESSY ◽  
Arif KUSUMAWANTO ◽  
Ardhya NARESWARI
Keyword(s):  
Thermal Comfort ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Spatial Configuration ◽  
Thermal Conditions ◽  
Simulation Method ◽  
Urban Public Space ◽  
Island Effect ◽  
Before And After

Crowded city will be impact to the temperature of urban areas. This condition is commonly known as the urban heat island effect. It’s impact to the activity that happened in the urban space. Recently, Fort Oranje (urban space/square) that has history value has been revitalized as an urban public space that is crowd visited by Ternate’s people. Therefore, the thermal comfort becomes an important thing and that is available to the users. The research is aim to know the influence of space configuration change to the aspect of thermal comfort in the urban public space. The method that is used in this research is empirical measurement and simulation method using Envi-MET software. This method is used to simulate the condition of thermal area in Fort Oranje. The result of this research showed that space configuration that change before and after the development of Ternate waterfront city impact to the thermal conditions in Fort Oranje public space.

scholarly journals Use of remote sensing in the identification of Urban Heat Islands and in the evaluation of Human Thermal Comfort

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (7) ◽  
pp. 408
Author(s):  
Rafaela Lisboa Costa
Keyword(s):  
Remote Sensing ◽  
Heat Stress ◽  
Surface Temperature ◽  
Thermal Comfort ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Satellite Images ◽  
Urban Heat Islands ◽  
Heat Islands ◽  
Human Thermal Comfort ◽  
Urban Heat

The objective of this study was to identify heat islands and to evaluate the degree of thermal comfort / discomfort in selected urban areas. Landsat 5 and 8 satellite images were use in the thermal bands and, as a complement, observed data from meteorological stations present in the chosen cities. In order to evaluate heat islands and the degree of thermal comfort / discomfort, the surface temperature was obtain and the Kawamura Discomfort Index (IDK) was use. By means of surface temperature images, it was possible to identify the heat islands in these areas. For IDK, in spite of this index, in general, to present the situation of comfort, for some areas were observe situations of discomfort and heat stress due to the heat, mainly in the year of 2016, considered one of the hottest of this century. The use of observed data was necessary in order to corroborate with the information of the satellites.

scholarly journals Comparative Study of Thermal Comfort Indices: A Melbourne CBD Case Study

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne WM Ng ◽  
Nitin Muttil ◽  
Fatma Balany ◽  
Bruke Zegeye
Keyword(s):  
Thermal Comfort ◽  
Green Infrastructure ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Climate Index ◽  
Thermal Perception ◽  
Physiological Equivalent Temperature ◽  
High Rise ◽  
Human Thermal Comfort ◽  
High Rise Building ◽  
Building Area

This study assesses Human Thermal Comfort in two selected areas: a Green Infrastructure (GI) area represented by a garden and a high-rise building area, in the Central Business District (CBD) of Melbourne, Australia. Three-dimensional microclimatic modelling software, ENVI-met version 4 was used to simulate the microclimate. The indices of Predicted Mean Vote (PMV), Physiological Equivalent Temperature (PET) and Universal Temperature Climate Index (UTCI) were used to quantify the level of thermal comfort in the research areas. The simulation results showed that at midday, the difference in temperature between the garden area and the high-rise building area was approximately 1°C. Increasing temperatures at midday led to a change in the level of thermal comfort for both the areas, even though it was not significant. In general, the thermal perception in the GI area was slightly ‘cooler’ than in the high-rise building area. The results of the study indicated the important role of GI in improving the thermal comfort in urban areas.

scholarly journals The Green Structure for Outdoor Places in Dry, Hot Regions and Seasons—Providing Human Thermal Comfort in Sustainable Cities

Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 2755 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karol Bandurski ◽  
Hanna Bandurska ◽  
Ewa Kazimierczak-Grygiel ◽  
Halina Koczyk
Keyword(s):  
Thermal Comfort ◽  
Urban Environment ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Pilot Project ◽  
Public Utility ◽  
Climate Type ◽  
Comfort Index ◽  
Human Thermal Comfort ◽  
Street Furniture ◽  
Green Structure

Hot and dry climate and air pollution is a growing problem in urban areas, and this can have an adverse impact on life and health of urban residents. One of the ways to protect people from this hazard is the use of urban green or street greenery. However, its implementation can be problematic in highly urbanized areas. This paper presents a concept of the green structure (GS), designed, and is still being developed, by Adam Kalinowski where cooling efficiency is based on the synergy of shade and evapotranspiration. The GS that could be used as street furniture, small architecture form or a public utility structure intended to protect people and objects from an adverse urban environment, at the same time providing pleasant and healthy microclimate inside. The pilot project-the first application of the GS in the urban environment-is presented and the results of short-term measurements of temperature and humidity are provided and analyzed. Moreover, a simple dynamic simulation of the GS performance in courtyards has been conducted. The obtained results show the decrease of the perceived temperature within this structure. Depending on climate type, an average potential reduction of Universal Thermal Comfort Index (UTCI) and mean radiant temperature (Tmrt), caused by the GS in a courtyard case study, is 5–8 °C and 17–29 °C, respectively. Performed simulation also confirms that TRNSYS software is an appropriate tool for simple outdoor microclimate analysis. Further research to develop this concept, increase its performance and customize it for different applications are proposed.

scholarly journals Experimental Winter Monitoring of a Light-Weight Green Roof Assembly for Building Retrofit

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 4604
Author(s):  
Fabiana Frota de Albuquerque Landi ◽  
Claudia Fabiani ◽  
Anna Laura Pisello
Keyword(s):  
Urban Areas ◽  
Green Roof ◽  
Green Roofs ◽  
Cold Season ◽  
Positive Energy ◽  
Light Weight ◽  
Building Retrofit ◽  
Island Effect ◽  
Urban Heat ◽  
The Impact

Green roofs are a recurrent solution for improving environmental quality in buildings. Such systems can, among other things, reduce the urban heat island effect, improve indoor thermal comfort and visual quality, and reduce energy consumption in buildings, therefore promoting human comfort. This work presents the winter monitoring of a light-weight green roof assembly with the potential to be implemented in extensive urban areas. The green roof monitoring was compared to those of previous bituminous and cool-coating applications. Results show that the system was able to decrease heat losses maintaining a positive energy flow from solar radiation gains and a more constant indoor temperature. In a well-insulated construction, the impact during the cold season was discreet. However, compared to the reference building, a slightly lower indoor air temperature (about 1 °C) was registered.

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