UEP 2012 Conference (Creating Healthy, Liveable Cities)- Amsterdam, Netherlands

Natural Ventilator of the City: a Model for Alleviating Urban Heat Island

Parisa Shahmohamadi¹, Ulrich Cubasch¹, Sahar Sodoudi¹, A.I. Che-Ani²

¹ Institut für Meteorologie, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany

² Department of Architecture, Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment,

Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Selangor, Malaysia

Abstract

The present paper deals with the dependence of alleviating urban heat island (UHI) on the design of an appropriate model. The model called “Natural Ventilator of the City”, recommended by this paper, has two different components including: 1) meteorological and urban structure factors which with their interactions form UHI over the urban areas; 2) vegetation covers and high albedo materials which contribute to mitigate the produced UHI. Compiling the key components into model is meaningful in promoting the passive climate control brought by vegetation covers and high albedo materials in an urban area. The interactions among the key components and the way of contribution of variables to alleviate the UHI effects are presented in the model. This study has chosen a district of Tehran as a case study. In order to test the model three approaches are presented, showing the results of UHI measurement using satellite image, UHI modeling using spatial analyses based on ArcGIS and urban climate simulations using three dimensional microclimate model ENVI-met which prognosticates the microclimate changes within urban environments.

Key Words: ENVI-met, High Albedo Material, “Natural Ventilator of the City” Model, Vegetation Cover, Urban Heat Island.