Urb-TWin — Urban air temperature and wind speed variability: Empirical modeling to improve planning applications

Results in brief

Urban air temperature and wind speed variability: Empirical modeling to improve planning applications

Climate change induces warmer summers and more frequent and intense heat waves, increasing human mortality and energy demand for cooling purpose. This is particularly critical in urban areas where climate variables such as temperature, humidity, wind and radiation are modified by the street morphology, the lack of pervious soils and the human activities. While the urban population is likely to grow, it is urgent to make cities cooler. Which areas should be preserved from urbanization to keep corridors of cool air in summer period ? Which buildings should be renovated in order to keep them cool during heat waves ? The overall goal of Urb-TWin is to study the impact of the urban fabric characteristics (mainly the morphology and the type of soils) on the air temperature and the wind speed spatial variability. At the end of the project, a more technical objective is to develop a user-friendly tool that can be used by researchers and urban planners willing to work with urban overheating issues.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union

Project objective

Climate change induces warmer summers and more frequent and intense heat waves, increasing human mortality and energy demand for cooling purpose. This is particularly critical in urban areas where climate variables such as temperature, humidity, wind and radiation are modified by the urban morphology, the lack of pervious soils and the human activities. While the urban population is likely to grow, it is urgent to make cities cooler. The overall goal of my project is to determine the urban fabric characteristics (mainly the morphology, vegetation cover and land-type) affecting the air temperature and the wind speed spatial variability. This new knowledge will be integrated in the Geographical Information System software QGIS in order to make it easily available to researchers working with urban issues as well as urban planners. First, empirical models will be developed to relate observed air temperature and simulated wind speed values to geographical indicators characterizing an observed or a simulated location (e.g. distance to building facade, vegetation or building density, etc.). Second, these models will be integrated in the QGIS software and thus will be available for interdisciplinary research purposes. Third, I will investigate the coupling of the urban climate models with energy models devoted to building energy estimation or solar energy production which are developed by the University Savoie Mont-Blanc (USMB - partner organization).The models developed during Urb-TWin will be useful for the urban climate research community since they could be used to speed up CFD simulations used in urban climate models. Moreover, they will also be available for urban planning applications from the widely known QGIS plat-form. Last, thanks to the Urb-TWin training and secondment, I will also increase my probability to get a permanent position as leader of an urban climate research axis at the partner organisation in the next years.

Original text from CORDIS.

Participants

GOETEBORGS UNIVERSITET · GoeteborgCoordinatorSweden

Urb-TWin · Urban air temperature and wind speed variability: Empirical modeling to improve planning applications

Results in brief

Urban air temperature and wind speed variability: Empirical modeling to improve planning applications

Project objective

Participants

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