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

Gatto, Elisa; Buccolieri, Riccardo; Aarrevaara, Eeva; Ippolito, Fabio; Emmanuel, Rohinton; Perronace, Leonardo; Santiago, José Luis

doi:10.3390/f11020228

Cited by 62 publications

(49 citation statements)

References 54 publications

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“…From Table 3, it can be concluded that Alternative 2 is the best alternative to improve the outdoor thermal comfort for this area, as adding larger trees to the model has a large effect on the PET value. This is consistent with the studies of Gatto et al [24] and Cheung and Jim [25], which clearly show the benefits of large trees compared to other cases.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 92%

Outdoor Thermal Comfort Improvement of Campus Public Space

Rinchumphu

Phichetkunbodee

Pomsurin

et al. 2021

Adv. technol. innov.

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This study focuses on the design of a campus public space, located within the Faculty of Engineering, Chiang Mai University, Thailand. This area faces extreme temperatures, creating uncomfortable outdoor thermal conditions and hindering activities that are expected to support the learning and social cohesion needs of students. To create the best conditions in this space, three design alternatives such as adding a pond, large trees, or shrubs were considered, and the Physiologically Equivalent Temperature (PET) was used to calculate the outdoor thermal comfort index for each alternative. The alternatives were then compared to the base case. The PET can be calculated using the ENVI-met simulation software following the appropriate field data collection and calibration process. The results showed that adding large trees in the south-west area is the best design alternative. The PET for this alternative was 3.17 % lower than the base case. In addition, this design workflow is an effective working model for further outdoor public space designs to meet the constraints of effective sustainable development in any tropical campus area.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 92%

Outdoor Thermal Comfort Improvement of Campus Public Space

Rinchumphu

Phichetkunbodee

Pomsurin

et al. 2021

Adv. technol. innov.

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“…ENVI-met required an ad hoc tuning of surface boundary conditions to satisfactorily predict nocturnal cooling. Gatto et al [52] applied and validated ENVI-met for the evaluation of thermal comfort in neighborhoods located in two cities characterized by a different climate, i.e., Lecce (taken as a Mediterranean city) and a northern European city in southern Finland (Lahti). Results showed that, at pedestrian height, the presence of vegetation led to an improvement of thermal comfort in the summer in both neighborhoods.…”

Section: A Brief Overview Of Recent Microclimate and Air Quality Studies In Leccementioning

confidence: 99%

“…ENVI-met was successfully employed in studies analyzing the effects of vegetation on microclimate and thermal comfort in the urban environment, where it was thoroughly described [34][35][36][37][38][39][40]; it was also employed for an investigation of air quality, focusing on air pollutant deposition and dispersion in several studies [41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49], which mostly found a satisfactory agreement with observations and concluded that, although it is not a very sophisticated model, it provides sufficient functions for establishing small-scale pollutant distribution for studies of urban greening in near-road environments. Specifically, the model was only applied to evaluate the microclimate in some districts of Lecce [50][51][52], while, to our knowledge, there are no papers applying the model to evaluate the impact of urban greening on the dispersion of air pollutants in the city of Lecce.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Characterization of Urban Greening in a District of Lecce (Southern Italy) for the Analysis of CO2 Storage and Air Pollutant Dispersion

et al. 2020

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This paper is devoted to the assessment of urban greening effects on two important ecosystem services, i.e., air quality and CO2 storage, including the corresponding economic impacts in a real urban area, i.e., a district located in the Mediterranean city of Lecce (southern Italy). Two tools were employed, i-Tree Canopy and the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) microclimate model ENVI-met. i-Tree Canopy allowed fully determining the land-cover percentage on the basis of different ground cover classes and obtaining an estimate of annual values of CO2 storage, air pollutant removal, and economic benefits in the presence of urban greening. The estimate in i-Tree Canopy considered only the amount of greening; therefore, air pollutant removal estimates were only potential. As the vegetation was located in street canyons, its interaction with local meteorology and urban geometry strictly affected the dispersion of nitrogen oxides (NOx) (taken here as an example) as obtained from ENVI-met simulations. In ENVI-met, both deposition/absorption and aerodynamic effects were considered, and local increases in concentration were found in the district. The analysis of results obtained from different tools (one complex (CFD model) and the other simple (i-Tree model)) showed the error associated with the simple model in the computation of impacts if the interaction among the vegetation characteristics, the meteorological conditions, and the urban geometry was neglected; however, it also uncovers a novel approach for comprehensively characterizing a given area in terms of its vegetation cover, CO2 storage, and economic benefits, as well as local effects on air quality. This study is set in a broader context aimed at assessing the air quality in urban canopies of Mediterranean areas characterized by the presence of narrow street canyons where pollutants can accumulate due to ineffective air exchange with the above atmosphere.

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“…For example, cold or cool materials with high reflectance, are often proposed as a solution to mitigate UHI effect [8]. Also green urban infrastructures make urban environments less thermally stressful improving thermal comfort: trees, green roofs, and vegetation can mitigate UHI effects by shading building surfaces, deflecting radiation from the sun, and with the evapotranspiration effect [9,10]. Greening plays a major role in mitigating the local climate, directly impacting the outdoors thermal comfort of city pedestrians, as well as reducing the energy demand of buildings.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Roof-Integrated Green Technologies, Energy Saving and Outdoor Thermal Comfort: Insights from a Case Study in Urban Environment

Mutani¹,

Todeschi²

2021

IJSDP

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Green urban infrastructures have a significant impact on urban climate mitigation, on indoor and outdoor thermal comfort and on energy performance of buildings. In this paper, outdoor thermal comfort conditions and energy saving for space heating and cooling were investigated before and after the use of roof-integrated green technologies. Existing urban energy and climate models and tools were applied to an urban area located in a Turin (Italy). CitySim, ENVI-met and SOLWEIG tools and a GIS-based model were used to evaluate the mean radiant temperature and the thermal comfort of outdoor spaces before and after the use of vegetated roofs and green surfaces such as the predicted mean vote (PMV), the physiological equivalent temperature (PET) and the universal thermal climate index (UTCI). A GIS-based engineering model and CitySim tool were used to evaluate the energy saving and energy independence index for space heating and cooling after the use of green roofs and solar technologies. According to the shape and the suitability of rooftop elaborated with GIS tools, some roofs were identified as potential green roofs other as potential solar roofs for installing solar thermal collectors and photovoltaic panels. According to the results it is possible to confirm that the use of green roofs and urban greenery can decrease the mean radiant temperature until about 10℃ during summer season, improving outdoor thermal comfort conditions and energy savings with a reduction of 12% for space cooling energy consumption.

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

Cited by 62 publications

References 54 publications

Outdoor Thermal Comfort Improvement of Campus Public Space

Outdoor Thermal Comfort Improvement of Campus Public Space

Characterization of Urban Greening in a District of Lecce (Southern Italy) for the Analysis of CO2 Storage and Air Pollutant Dispersion

Roof-Integrated Green Technologies, Energy Saving and Outdoor Thermal Comfort: Insights from a Case Study in Urban Environment

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