Abstract
The urban heat island (UHI) effect is a global issue that can aggravate global warming (GW) and is a major problem in cities in developing countries like Iran. Local adaptation and mitigation strategies based on available data, tools, and resources in parallel with understanding the necessary level of intervention could be a valuable solution for reducing UHI effects in Iran. In this study, the simulation method ENVI-met was examined as a way of modelling potential strategies to predict UHI. This was done through creating different scenarios for selected areas of the city of Mashhad. In order to assess ENVI-met simulation outputs, the default inputs in both the modelled areas and simulation tool were manipulated. As the aim of this research was to see how much the simulation process could be simplified to suit the resources available in Iran, only ground surface temperature (Ts) was considered. The results revealed using local surface materials have a significant effect on the simulation results. In other words, simulating the model area with local materials shows how unevenly surface temperatures could be distributed. It also indicates an increase in average Ts. However, a long simulation period does not make a significant difference in terms of both average Ts and Ts distribution. Therefore, the recommendation to urban designers is to assign local street and paving materials to their model but to model for a shorter time when computing power is limited. These recommendations apply when urban designers need to examine different scenarios for areas and the size of a neighbourhood.
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Acknowledgements
The authors wish to express appreciation to Victoria University of Wellington for supporting this project by buying the science version of ENVI-met, and especially Stewart Millan for providing computers so as to run simulations in parallel. This work was supported by Mashhad City Council by providing GIS shape file details and metrological information.
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Shabahang, S., Vale, B., Gjerde, M. (2021). A Simulation Method for Studying Urban Heat Islands at the Urban Scale. In: Littlewood, J., Howlett, R.J., Jain, L.C. (eds) Sustainability in Energy and Buildings 2020. Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies, vol 203. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-8783-2_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-8783-2_9
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