A neighbourhood-scale estimate for the cooling potential of green roofs
File(s)
Accepted version
Author(s)
Suter, I
Maksimovic, C
Van Reeuwijk, M
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Green roofs offer the possibility to mitigate multiple environmental issues in an urban environment. A common benefit attributed to green roofs is the temperature reduction through evaporation. This study focuses on evaluating the effect that evaporative cooling has on outdoor air temperatures in an urban environment. An established urban energy balance model was modified to quantify the cooling potential of green roofs and study the scalability of this mitigation strategy. Simulations were performed for different climates and urban geometries, with varying soil moisture content, green roof fraction and urban surface layer thickness. All simulations show a linear relationship between surface layer temperature reduction ΔTs and domain averaged evaporation rates from vegetation mmW, i.e. ΔTs = eW ⋅ mmW, where eW is the evaporative cooling potential with a value of ∼ −0.35 Kdaymm−1. This relationship is independent of the method by which water is supplied. We also derive a simple algebraic relation for eW using a Taylor series expansion.
Date Issued
2017-06-01
Date Acceptance
2017-02-17
Citation
Urban Climate, 2017, 20 (1), pp.33-45
ISSN
2212-0955
Publisher
Elsevier
Start Page
33
End Page
45
Journal / Book Title
Urban Climate
Volume
20
Issue
1
Copyright Statement
© 2017 Published by Elsevier B.V. This manuscript is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Identifier
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212095517300147?via%3Dihub
Subjects
Science & Technology
Life Sciences & Biomedicine
Physical Sciences
Environmental Sciences
Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences
Environmental Sciences & Ecology
Green roofs
Urban heat island
Urban energy balance
cooling potential
ENVIRONMENT SIMULATOR JULES
MODEL DESCRIPTION
HEAT-ISLAND
URBAN
CLIMATE
FLUXES
STRESS
CITIES
ENERGY
WAVE
0401 Atmospheric Sciences
0502 Environmental Science and Management
1205 Urban and Regional Planning
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2017-03-06