Abstract
A climate-responsive landscape design can create a more livable urban microclimate with adequate human comfortability. This paper aims to quantitatively investigate the effects of landscape design elements of pavement materials, greenery, and water bodies on urban microclimate and thermal comfort in a high-rise residential area in the tropic climate of Singapore. A comprehensive field measurement is undertaken to obtain real data on microclimate parameters for calibration of the microclimate-modeling software ENVI-met 4.0. With the calibrated ENVI-met, seven urban landscape scenarios are simulated and their effects on thermal comfort as measured by physiologically equivalent temperature (PET) are evaluated. It is found that the maximum improvement of PET reduction with suggested landscape designs is about 12°C, and high-albedo pavement materials and water bodies are not effective in reducing heat stress in hot and humid climate conditions. The combination of shade trees over grass is the most effective landscape strategy for cooling the microclimate. The findings from the paper can equip urban designers with knowledge and techniques to mitigate urban heat stress.
Highlights
A climate-responsive landscape design can create a more livable urban microclimate with adequate human comfortability. is paper aims to quantitatively investigate the effects of landscape design elements of pavement materials, greenery, and water bodies on urban microclimate and thermal comfort in a high-rise residential area in the tropic climate of Singapore
Many measures to reduce urban heat stress and/or improve outdoor thermal comfort have been proposed by various researchers and at different spatial scales [2,3,4,5,6], their effectiveness is a subject for debate. e main reason is that the dominant professions for urban design and planning, namely, architecture and engineering, so far focus on the influence of landscaping on air and surface temperatures and their subsequent effect on buildings [7]
It can be seen that design strategies that can reduce surface temperature and air temperature may not necessarily reduce heat stress condition
Summary
A climate-responsive landscape design can create a more livable urban microclimate with adequate human comfortability. is paper aims to quantitatively investigate the effects of landscape design elements of pavement materials, greenery, and water bodies on urban microclimate and thermal comfort in a high-rise residential area in the tropic climate of Singapore. A climate-responsive landscape design can create a more livable urban microclimate with adequate human comfortability. Is paper aims to quantitatively investigate the effects of landscape design elements of pavement materials, greenery, and water bodies on urban microclimate and thermal comfort in a high-rise residential area in the tropic climate of Singapore. With the calibrated ENVI-met, seven urban landscape scenarios are simulated and their effects on thermal comfort as measured by physiologically equivalent temperature (PET) are evaluated. It is found that the maximum improvement of PET reduction with suggested landscape designs is about 12°C, and high-albedo pavement materials and water bodies are not effective in reducing heat stress in hot and humid climate conditions. Us, the effect of urban landscaping on microclimate and human thermal comfort is necessary to be considered in the urban design and planning process. The impact of countermeasures by urban design on urban thermal comfort cannot be described sufficiently by simple microclimate factors, such as surface or air temperature. ere are seven factors (or parameters) that affect human thermal comfort in an outdoor environment. ey are air temperature, air humidity, wind, solar radiation, terrestrial radiation, metabolic heat, and clothing insulation [8]. e first
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