scholarly journals Procedure for the selection and evaluation of prefabricated housing buildings for the implementation of green roofs in the context of Urban Heat Island mitigation. The example of Wrocław, Poland

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (10) ◽  
pp. e0258641
Author(s):  
Justyna Rubaszek ◽  
Mariusz Szymanowski ◽  
Adam Michalski ◽  
Radosław Tatko ◽  
Marta Weber-Siwirska

The assessment of the suitability of existing buildings for implementation of green roofs is an important research issue, especially in the context of Urban Heat Island (UHI), the negative impacts of which are locally exacerbated by the global warming. The studies carried out so far have covered a variety of buildings and have taken into account a range of different conditions. Relatively little attention has been paid to the possibilities of greening the roofs of prefabricated apartment blocks from the second half of the 20th century in the context of the potential climate effect. Yet, these buildings are found in many cities around the world, and seem in fact attractive for greening. In view of the above, we proposed a three-stage investigatory procedure to: (I) identify and classify buildings based on the number of floors and the rooftop available area; (II) select buildings by designating priority areas depending on the highest UHI intensity and roof density; (III) analyse the roof load capacity to develop retrofit scenarios. The procedure was applied to prefabricated housing estates built in the 1970s and 1980s in Wrocław, Poland. The research shows that there are 1962 buildings of different heights and roof area of 722405 m2, of which 480 buildings with a roof area of 122749.1 m2 were selected for greening within priority areas. The structure of the studied roofs was not designed to carry additional loads, which requires the application of complementary solutions. Scenario 1 assumes extensive greening provided that the existing ventilated roof is strengthened, scenario 2 –semi-intensive greening, which however requires the conversion of the ventilated roof to a non-ventilated one. The presented procedure can be applied in any other city with prefabricated apartment blocks and available UHI data, and serve to support the decision to implement green roofs to mitigate UHI.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yonghong Hu ◽  
Gensuo Jia ◽  
Jinlong Ai ◽  
Yong Zhang ◽  
Meiting Hou ◽  
...  

Abstract Typical urban and rural temperature records are essential for the estimation and comparison of urban heat island effects in different regions, and the key issues are how to identify the typical urban and rural stations. This study tried to analyze the similarity of air temperature sequences by using dynamic time warping algorithm (DTW) to improve the selection of typical stations. We examined the similarity of temperature sequences of 20 stations in Beijing and validated by remote sensing, and the results indicated that DTW algorithm could identify the difference of temperature sequence, and clearly divide them into different groups according to their probability distribution information. The analysis for station pairs with high similarity could provide appropriate classification for typical urban stations (FT, SY, HD, TZ, CY, CP, MTG, BJ, SJS, DX, FS) and typical rural stations (ZT, SDZ, XYL) in Beijing. We also found that some traditional rural stations can’t represent temperature variation in rural surface because of their surrounding environments highly modified by urbanization process in last decades, and they may underestimate the urban climate effect by 1.24℃. DTW algorithm is simple in analysis and application for temperature sequences, and has good potentials in improving urban heat island estimation in regional or global scale by selecting more appropriate temperature records.


Atmosphere ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guglielmina Mutani ◽  
Valeria Todeschi

There is growing attention to the use of greenery in urban areas, in various forms and functions, as an instrument to reduce the impact of human activities on the urban environment. The aim of this study has been to investigate the use of green roofs as a strategy to reduce the urban heat island effect and to improve the thermal comfort of indoor and outdoor environments. The effects of the built-up environment, the presence of vegetation and green roofs, and the urban morphology of the city of Turin (Italy) have been assessed considering the land surface temperature distribution. This analysis has considered all the information recorded by the local weather stations and satellite images, and compares it with the geometrical and typological characteristics of the city in order to find correlations that confirm that greenery and vegetation improve the livability of an urban context. The results demonstrate that the land-surface temperature, and therefore the air temperature, tend to decrease as the green areas increase. This trend depends on the type of urban context. Based on the results of a green-roofs investigation of Turin, the existing and potential green roofs are respectively almost 300 (257,380 m2) and 15,450 (6,787,929 m2). Based on potential assessment, a strategy of priority was established according to the characteristics of building, to the presence of empty spaces, and to the identification of critical areas, in which the thermal comfort conditions are poor with low vegetation. This approach can be useful to help stakeholders, urban planners, and policy makers to effectively mitigate the urban heat island (UHI), improve the livability of the city, reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and gain thermal comfort conditions, and to identify policies and incentives to promote green roofs.


2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (Special-Issue1) ◽  
pp. 918-927 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roozbeh Arabi ◽  
Mohd Shahidan ◽  
M. S Kamal ◽  
Mohamad Jaafar ◽  
Mehdi Rakhshandehroo

2018 ◽  
pp. 295-300
Author(s):  
S.S. Cipolla ◽  
M. Maglionico ◽  
G. Semprini ◽  
V. Villani ◽  
A. Bonoli

2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jihui Yuan ◽  
Kazuo Emura ◽  
Craig Farnham

Research on urban heat island (UHI) mitigation has been carried out globally. Several strategies have been proposed or developed to mitigate UHI, including highly reflective (HR) envelopes of buildings, green roofs, urban vegetation, shading, heat sinks, and air-conditioning efficiency. Among these techniques, HR envelopes have been extensively studied as an effective method to mitigate the UHI effect by reducing energy consumption. However, because most of HR materials are diffusive, HR envelopes applied to vertical surfaces can reflect both onto roads and nearby buildings. Additionally, HR roofs cannot reflect all incoming solar radiation to the sky if there are high buildings around it. Thus, HR materials applied as building envelopes have a limited effect against the solar contribution to the UHI. In order to solve this problem, retroreflective (RR) materials, which reflect the solar radiation back towards the source, have been studied and developed to be applied as building envelopes instead of HR materials. This paper summarizes several previous researches on HR envelopes and cool roofs and summarizes several current researches on RR materials. The potential for application of RR envelopes in cities is proposed with consideration of economic and environmental factors.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document