Urban Microclimate

A special issue of Atmosphere (ISSN 2073-4433). This special issue belongs to the section "Biometeorology and Bioclimatology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 October 2019) | Viewed by 24370

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz, Department of Geography, Mainz, Germany
Interests: microclimate modelling; computer simulation; outdoor thermal comfort; sustainable design

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

With growing interest in sustainable cities and an increased awareness of climate change implications, the investigation of the urban microclimate has become a mandatory component in urban planning and architectural design. In particular, the parameters outdoor thermal comfort, air quality, and modification of energy fluxes are integrated components in many planning processes, and there is a growing demand to understand the interactions between local environmental design and local microclimate.

This Special Issue of Atmosphere will provide an overview of the different aspects of urban microclimate in the areas of urban planning, architectural design, and landscape architecture. It is designed to provide insight into recent research approaches in field experiments, numerical modelling, and integrated planning and design approaches.

Prof. Dr. Michael Bruse
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • urban microclimate
  • outdoor thermal comfort
  • urban heat island mitigation
  • urban air quality

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

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18 pages, 3056 KiB  
Article
Nature-Based Designs to Mitigate Urban Heat: The Efficacy of Green Infrastructure Treatments in Portland, Oregon
by Yasuyo Makido, Dana Hellman and Vivek Shandas
Atmosphere 2019, 10(5), 282; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos10050282 - 21 May 2019
Cited by 39 | Viewed by 18005
Abstract
Urban heat is a growing environmental concern in cities around the world. The urban heat island effect, combined with warming effects of climate change, is likely to cause an increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme heat events. Alterations to the physical, [...] Read more.
Urban heat is a growing environmental concern in cities around the world. The urban heat island effect, combined with warming effects of climate change, is likely to cause an increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme heat events. Alterations to the physical, built environment are a viable option for mitigating urban heat, yet few studies provide systematic guidance to practitioners for adapting diverse land uses. In this study, we examine the use of green infrastructure treatments to evaluate changes in ambient temperatures across diverse land uses in the city of Portland, Oregon. We apply ENVI-met® microclimate modeling at the city-block scale specifically to determine what built environment characteristics are most associated with high temperatures, and the extent to which different physical designs reduce ambient temperature. The analysis included six green infrastructure interventions modeled across six different land-use types, and indicated the varying degrees to which approaches are effective. Results were inconsistent across landscapes, and showed that one mitigation solution alone would not significantly reduce extreme heat. These results can be used to develop targeted, climate- and landscape-specific cooling interventions for different land uses, which can help to inform and refine current guidance to achieve urban climate adaptation goals. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Microclimate)
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Review

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29 pages, 7936 KiB  
Review
A Review and Insights for Eleven Years of Urban Microclimate Research Towards a New Egyptian ERA of Low Carbon, Comfortable and Energy-Efficient Housing Typologies
by Mohammad Fahmy, Sherif Mahmoud, Ibrahim Elwy and Hatem Mahmoud
Atmosphere 2020, 11(3), 236; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos11030236 - 28 Feb 2020
Cited by 21 | Viewed by 5828
Abstract
Since the mid-1970s, urban development in Egypt has sprawled far from the distinguished compact arid built environment, as the court-yarded housing typologies that completed the vernacular picture of desert architecture have been discarded in the early 20th century. This has motivated urban microclimate [...] Read more.
Since the mid-1970s, urban development in Egypt has sprawled far from the distinguished compact arid built environment, as the court-yarded housing typologies that completed the vernacular picture of desert architecture have been discarded in the early 20th century. This has motivated urban microclimate research in Egypt. The main objective was initially to improve outdoor thermal comfort. Therefore, Egyptian research started with assessing different existing patterns for the sake of climate responsive and sustainable urban design practice characterized with low carbon, thermal comfort and energy efficiency in such a hot arid conditions. That is why the review workflow of this article has followed a design progress workflow that led to solving design complexities with regard to generating housing urban forms on a microclimate basis rather than an article regular review workflow in order to extract the research gaps and conclude insights. After discussing a general framework for generating housing sustainable design identified from the concluded gaps, the main conclusion is a vision and a call to integrate the Urban microclimate-Building passiveness-Renewables design dimensions, UBR, towards the evolution of a new era of energy efficient housing typologies and a 5th generation of Egyptian sustainable cities where the 1st generation of new Egyptian cities started 1970s. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Microclimate)
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