Trees & Vegetation
Enhancing Urban Green Spaces with ENVI-met: Optimizing Vegetation Efficiency, Resilience and Safety
Green elements in the urban environment can buffer heat waves but are also exposed to hostile living conditions. The appropriate selection and composition of urban vegetation is therefore essential to create sustainable green spaces. ENVI-met calculates the leaf temperature individually for each model grid box, taking into account the photosynthetic rate, water availability in the soil and the local evapotranspiration rate.
Urban Vegetation.
The scarcity of resources and the complex urban environment pose unique challenges to plant growth. The interplay of limited soil and water, coupled with intricate wind and turbulence patterns influenced by surrounding structures, impacts vegetation in diverse ways. While sheltered zones near buildings offer favorable conditions, other areas face heightened turbulence and strong winds, shaping trees differently. A deep understanding of these conditions is vital for sustainable landscape architecture, particularly when considering urban changes.
Environmental Analysis.
ENVI-met’s advanced simulation and modeling capabilities unlock valuable insights into the intricate wind patterns and their influence on urban vegetation. This empowers landscape architects and urban planners to make informed decisions about selecting and placing vegetation in urban areas. By leveraging ENVI-met’s expertise, urban green spaces can be thoughtfully designed and managed, ensuring optimal well-being and longevity of the vegetation while promoting sustainable and resilient urban environments.
Leaf temperature.
In urban climatology, one of the key benefits of incorporating green solutions is the cooling effect provided by vegetation. Beyond the shade it offers during the day, vegetation cools the air through transpiration, where leaves cool down and transfer the coolness to the surrounding air. However, it is important to maintain a lower leaf temperature than the air temperature to ensure effective cooling, as excessive foliage temperature can lead to leaf tissue damage.
Unveiling Sustainable Landscapes: A High-Resolution Case Study of Vegetation Dynamics
Detailed simulation and analysis of the environmental conditions
One of the key benefits when implementing green solutions is the ability of vegetation to cool down the air temperature through shading, but also through evapotranspirative cooling. This process does not directly cool down the air, but first cools down the leaves, and then through heat transfer, cools down the air flowing through the foliage.
A cool leaf temperature is not only necessary to lower the air temperature. It can also stop the leaf tissue from being destroyed when the foliage temperature rises above a certain threshold. ENVI-met allows you to conduct detailed simulations to analyse the temperature impact of vegetation on the surrounding area as well as the impact of local climatic conditions on the vegetation itself.
By using ENVI-met it is also possible to focus on the demands of urban vegetation with consideration of wind stress and storm risk.
Unleashing the Power of TreePass: Advancing Sustainable Urban Greenery with High-Resolution Analysis
Discover the Potential of Sustainable Urban Greenery: Harnessing the Power of ENVI-mets Tree Pass for Optimizing Growing Conditions, Plant Selection, and Landscape Design. Discover how this new coming feature will revolutionize the approach to urban green spaces, providing valuable insights for landscape architects and urban planners to create vibrant, resilient, and environmentally friendly urban environments.
Wind risk.
Urban planning goes beyond sustainable buildings; it also encompasses creating optimal growing and living conditions for trees. Strong and unusual wind situations pose risks to urban trees, potentially leading to damage and safety hazards. With ENVI-met’s TreePass analysis, detailed information on wind and turbulence conditions at specific tree locations will be provided, along with calculations of mechanical forces. This will enable identification of potential points of damage and offers guidance on tree shaping for optimal safety and growth.
Tree Arrangement.
Trees, whether in forests or urban environments, are often arranged in groups and rows, where their collective arrangement influences wind conditions and light access. Trees that are sheltered by others or buildings tend to be less stable and have a more fragile geometry compared to those in the front rows exposed to the full force of the wind. Changes in the arrangement, such as removing trees or altering wind patterns due to new constructions, can have significant impacts.
Coming 2024.
The TreePass feature will offer a comprehensive analysis of microclimate conditions for optimal tree growth and sustainability. By considering factors such as wind patterns, light availability, and mechanical forces exerted on trees, the TreePass will provide valuable insights for landscape architects, urban planners, and tree managers. With this information, informed decisions can be made regarding tree selection, placement, and management strategies to promote the health, stability, and longevity of urban green spaces.
Maximizing Urban Greenery: High-Resolution Case Study on the TreePass for Sustainable Landscapes
TreePass for sustainable urban greenery
This new module will not only provide a comprehensive data sheet of all relevant growing conditions at prospective tree locations, but also look at the tree’s biomechanics to prevent storm damage.
TreePass will allow you to analyze individual trees at the scale of a typical crown geometry with the resolution of a single branch. The impact of the local growing conditions, such as access to light, as well as different maintenance strategies will be considered in the analysis. The risk of uprooting or breakage will be visible down to the individual branch level for an unlimited number of trees inside a city quarter.
The ENVI-met TreePass will consist of a number of analysis modules, the first of which will be available with the 2024 Release.
