Pitfalls and Potentials of Microclimate Simulations in Urban Planning
Publication: Journal of Urban Planning and Development
Volume 149, Issue 4
Abstract
In the face of climate change and rising mean global temperature, urban planning is required to transform cities into resilient living areas for present and future generations. Within this task, microclimate simulation models are an important tool to assess the impact of nature-based solutions (NBSs), building morphology, design of urban quarters, and other measures on the local microclimate. As simulation tools are open to be applied by different user groups, the utilization of the software is often kept as easy as possible. This seeming simplicity bears the risk for users to fall into traps during the model configuration, interpretation of results, or not making use of the full potential of simulations. While scientific literature mainly describes successful application of case studies, it does not cover potential misapplication and related consequences. The present study contributes to closing this research gap and supports the urban planning community with a selection of pitfalls in the model setup and interpretation of results. Clear examples of wrong configuration of wind direction, inaccurate evaluation of mean radiant temperature (MRT), and improper selection of performance indicators are presented by the means of sensitivity experiments and case studies with the modeling software ENVI-Met. The prevailing study demonstrates why MRT values are not suitable to explain effects of NBS during nighttime and contrasts the effects of façade greening on air temperature (0.85°C) with building surface temperature (6.1°C or even 27.5°C with substrate layer). In addition, it highlights the potentials of the multitude of possible performance indicators of microclimate simulations. The selection of avoidable mistakes in the assessment of the local microclimate supports users of microclimate models to promote effective and impactful climate adaption and mitigation measures in urban planning.
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Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models, or code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the research project GreenDeal4Real, funded by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG), the promotional bank of the Austrian federal government (AWS), and the Austrian Society for Environment and Technology (OEGUT) on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation, and Technology (BMK) in the research and technology program “City of the Future” (ger. “Stadt der Zukunft”) [Grant No. 879456].
Author contributions: Martin Schneider: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing – Original Draft, Visualization; Tanja Tötzer: Conceptualization, Writing – Review and Editing, Supervision, Project administration, Funding acquisition; Marianne Bügelmayer-Blaschek: Writing – Review and Editing; Romana Stollnberger: Writing – Review and Editing, Project administration, Funding acquisition.
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Published In
Journal of Urban Planning and Development
Volume 149 • Issue 4 • December 2023
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This work is made available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
History
Received: Jan 10, 2023
Accepted: Jul 10, 2023
Published online: Oct 6, 2023
Published in print: Dec 1, 2023
Discussion open until: Mar 6, 2024
ASCE Technical Topics:
- Air temperature
- Building design
- Case studies
- Computer programming
- Computer software
- Computing in civil engineering
- Design (by type)
- Engineering fundamentals
- Engineering mechanics
- Infrastructure
- Measurement (by type)
- Methodology (by type)
- Models (by type)
- Research methods (by type)
- Simulation models
- Temperature (by type)
- Temperature effects
- Temperature measurement
- Thermal properties
- Thermodynamics
- Urban and regional development
- Urban areas
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