Modelling the Urban Heat Island and Urban Thermal Stress

In this book, and in thousands of studies by other authors later, this phenomena refers to the fact, that during the night, the urbanized areas are warmer compared to the rural areas. There are many reasons for this and many of them changed over the centuries, but the core reasons for the UHI can be found in missing water evaporation, increased heat storage in buildings and the ground, reduced ventilation and the obstruction of the sky which hinders the heat to escape into the open atmosphere.

However, in its original meaning, the Urban Heat Island is a large scale phenomena (Urbanized Areas versus Rural Areas) and it is a night-time effect. Actually, during the day, urban areas in general can be cooler compared to the rural landscape due to the shading effects of buildings.

In the last years, especially in the context of climate change adaption of urban areas, the term “Urban Heat Island” is used in a more general and often smaller context to describe the effect of hot spots in urban areas at any time of the day. In a more general way of speaking, we can talk about “Urban Thermal Stress” which includes both the nocturnal effects of the urban environment but also the day-time heat stress elements such as infrared (heat) radiation, reflection and glazing of sun and missing evaporation.

With respect to urban planning and architecture, it is important to understand that there is no such thing as “A” urban microclimate. The microclimate of a city is a patchwork of very different small scale climates close to each other generated by the direct environment. Hot spots can be just a few meters away from cold spots and locations, which are too cool in the morning might be too warm in the evening. It is therefore inevitable to use numerical simulations to understand which impact urban planning or design decision will have on the open space microclimate.
The ENVI-met system allows to analyse the impacts of the local environmental design, such as urban green spaces, selection of ground and building materials or the usage of vegetation on walls or roofs on the urban heat stress for any thinkable configuration.
You do not need to build it, to analyse it.

With ENVI-met’s interactive tools you can dive into any aspect of the microclimate complex and analyse how your designs perform.
ENVI-net is applied worldwide, form the tropics to the polar regions. With more than 3.000 independent studies (Google Scholar) ENVI-met is the most evaluated microclimate model available proving its capabilities to accurately simulate outdoor microclimate for any place on the earth.