VTUF-3D: An urban micro-climate model to assess temperature moderation from increased vegetation and water in urban canyons
Abstract
With urban areas facing future longer duration heatwaves and temperature extremes, adaptation strategies are needed. Examining the role that increased tree cover and water availability can have on human thermal comfort (HTC) in urban areas as part of these strategies has been done using observations, but further work requires a modelling tool suited for this task. Sufficient model resolution is needed to resolve variables used to calculate HTC as well as the ability to model the physiological processes of vegetation and their interaction with water. The lack of such a tool has been identified as a research gap in the urban climate area and has impaired our ability to fully examine the use of vegetation and water for improved human thermal comfort. A new model, VTUF (Vegetated Temperatures Of Urban Facets), addresses this gap by embedding the functionality of the MAESPA tree process model (Duursma & Medlyn 2012), that can model individual trees, vegetation, and soil components, within the TUF-3D (Krayenhoff & Voogt 2007) urban micro-climate model. An innovative tiling approach, allows the new model to account for important vegetative physiological processes and shading effects. It also resolves processes at sufficiently high resolution to calculate HTC and air and surface temperature, humidity, and wind speed across an urban canyon. Model validations have shown performance improvements of the model and a suitability to use it to examine critical questions relating to the role of vegetation and water in the urban environment. Analysis using this model includes scenarios quantifying the impact each individual tree can have on temperatures in urban canyons as well the optimal arrangement and quantity of trees to maximize temperature moderation effects.
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