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Sustainable City Design: Application of Urban Microclimate Research

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental Sustainability and Applications".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2019) | Viewed by 4207

Special Issue Editor

Department of Geography and Environmental Development, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva 8410501, Israel
Interests: architectur; eurban microclimate; energy in buildings

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Urban climate research has made remarkable progress since Luke Howard published ‘The Climate of London’. What began as a purely descriptive exercise, documenting differences between urban and rural locations, has developed into a rigorous scientific discipline applying sophisticated instrumentation and advanced computer modeling to explain the underlying exchanges of energy and mass. Some of this research has also attempted to address practical real-life problems, and recent years have seen a veritable explosion in the number of papers devoted to topics such as ‘heat island mitigation’. Yet, despite the development of tools and methodologies for incorporating urban climatology into urban planning and design, there is too little evidence that this integration occurs in practice. Even where environmental concerns are the subject of public debate and where urban planners are interested in climatic aspects of design, the use of climate information is often piecemeal and not systematic. Regrettably, urban climatology still has too little impact on the planning process.

There may be several reasons for this. Some of the knowledge generated through academic research may be valuable from a purely scientific perspective yet still not be directly relevant to the planning community; the knowledge may be relevant, but is not communicated in a form that practitioners can readily understand and implement; or the information is too narrowly focused, and recommendations contradict other inputs to the design that have broader implications. Finally, urban planning scenarios may be in general characterized as ‘wicked problems’—problems that are difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements that are often difficult to recognize. Integrating rigorous scientific methodologies in such conditions poses a real challenge.

Effective implementation of urban climatology requires that we first define the objectives of the intervention in a meaningful manner. For example, reports of substantial reduction of air temperature by various measures are sometimes offered as demonstrations of good practice, but the focus on air temperature modification per se is probably not a useful end in itself.  Human thermal comfort, energy conservation, and good air quality, on the other hand, are worthy objectives that will have a meaningful contribution to the development of sustainable cities.

So, what is the point of this Special Issue? Rather than provide yet another platform for focused studies on topics such as the effect of trees on air temperature, this issue seeks to compile cutting-edge studies that shine a light on the complexity of applying urban climate research to the planning and design of sustainable cities. Studies may be theoretical or empirical. They may be generated from the perspective of climatologists or urban planners. However, they should demonstrate a comprehensive approach that addresses a broad range of effects of a proposed policy or intervention that seeks to contribute to sustainability in cities.

Prof. Evyatar Erell
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Urban planning and urban design
  • Urban form
  • Outdoor thermal comfort in urban spaces
  • Energy conservation in city buildings
  • Urban air quality

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

26 pages, 8828 KiB  
Article
Correlative Impact of Shading Strategies and Configurations Design on Pedestrian-Level Thermal Comfort in Traditional Shophouse Neighbourhoods, Southern China
by Shi Yin, Werner Lang, Yiqiang Xiao and Zhao Xu
Sustainability 2019, 11(5), 1355; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su11051355 - 05 Mar 2019
Cited by 24 | Viewed by 3828
Abstract
Traditional shophouse neighbourhoods (TSNs) in southern China respond well to the local hot and humid climate through proper street configurations and the integration of different shading strategies. Investigating the impact of shading strategies and configurations in TSNs on outdoor thermal comfort is valuable [...] Read more.
Traditional shophouse neighbourhoods (TSNs) in southern China respond well to the local hot and humid climate through proper street configurations and the integration of different shading strategies. Investigating the impact of shading strategies and configurations in TSNs on outdoor thermal comfort is valuable for guiding current urban design. Three street canyons in a TSN of Guangzhou with different shading strategies were selected as basic cases for microclimatic measurement in the summer season, i.e., alleys, streets with arcade for pedestrians, and streets with high-density greenery. After validating their simulation models in ENVI-met, five groups of parametric simulations were generated by varying the canyon aspect ratio (CHW), the canyon axis orientation, arcade proportion (AHW), and the tree-covered area (TCA). Using the physiological equivalent temperature (PET) to assess the above results, the correlative impact of different variations on pedestrian’s thermal comfort and their corresponding favourable ranges are summarized. The findings suggest that: (a) only in alleys and arcade streets, the pedestrian-level thermal comfort was significantly influenced by canyon axis orientation. (b) The thermal stress for pedestrians increased dramatically when the CHW was lower than 1.5 in alleys and 0.78 in boulevards (in TCA = 89%), while the CHW higher than 1 indicated a remarkable reduction on the PET for pedestrians in arcades. (c) The pedestrians started losing the protection from shading strategy to thermal stress when the AHW was higher than 1.33 (in canyon with CHW = 1) or the TCA was lower than 33% (in canyon with CHW = 0.78). Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable City Design: Application of Urban Microclimate Research)
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