Abstract
The Metropolitan Area of Mendoza (MMA), Argentina, has extended towards peripheral hillside areas without considering the environmental impact of this action. This growth has continued the urban model of flatland development, causing changes in the ecosystem and an increase in outdoor air temperature. This work proposes and evaluates urban schemes that incorporate design criteria with the objective of preserving environmental characteristics and mitigating the effect of urbanization on the microclimate. The proposed grid layouts, located in three predominant slopes, were linear organic and Cul-de-Sac. Methodologically, the microclimatic response of the proposed schemes was evaluated by applying ENVI-met software simulation. The results show that urban growth is possible when carefully considering environmental limitations which grant maximum air temperature reductions of up to 2 °C.
Highlights
The growth of Latin American cities has shown late transformations compared to more developed parts of the world (USA and Europe) (Castells, 2017)
In order to identify the urban scheme with the best thermal response, a comparative analysis of maximum- minimum and average air temperatures reached on a typical summer day was carried out together with a box-plot analysis showing the variability of the thermal responses of each scheme
Considering the comparative analysis of the proposed schemes regarding the prevailing urbanization pattern of hillside areas, this work concludes that it is possible to improve the microclimate of the urban frame and to respond to the intrinsic characteristics of the piedmont
Summary
The growth of Latin American cities has shown late transformations compared to more developed parts of the world (USA and Europe) (Castells, 2017). Rapid urbanization was closely linked to high population growth with a net redistribution of the population from rural to urban areas. This growth steadily decreased after the 1970s due to the high rate of population moving to the outskirts of the city (da Cunha et al, 2009). The microclimate of cities is modified by the intense anthropization of natural environments causing urban temperatures to be significantly higher than suburban or rural ones (Zhou et al, 2017). This originates two phenomena known as Urban Heat Island -UHI- and Urban Warming -UW-. Intense research has been carried out to develop, test and implement efficient technologies for the mitigation of urban warming, considering the climatic and geomorphological characteristics of the implantation site.
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