Climatic performance of urban textures: analysis tools for a Mediterranean urban context

Abstract

Urban heat island effect is almost always neglected in building energy simulations, due to difficulties in obtaining site-specific climate data with a district-scale resolution. This study aims at filling this gap for the Mediterranean urban context, presenting a set of tools to estimate the climatic performance of urban fabric at the local scale. The results are based on climatic analysis conducted in Rome (Italy) and Barcelona (Spain) with the Urban Weather Generator (UWG) model, validated using temperature measurements taken in urban meteorological stations. Parametric analysis of the UHI intensity was performed considering five key variables: urban morphology, vegetation cover, anthropogenic heat from buildings, anthropogenic heat from traffic and albedo. The results show that the variability of urban morphology has the major impact on urban temperature. Two robust relationships between three morphology descriptors of urban fabric and UHI intensity were established applying multiple regression analysis. Such relationships indicate that both the horizontal and the vertical density of buildings play a major role on the temperature increase in urban areas. Easy-to-use graphical tools have been provided to compare the climate performance of different urban textures and to estimate the average UHI intensity variability in Mediterranean cities.