Increasing urban vegetation cover is a mitigation strategy often proposed to alleviate excessive heat and low outdoor thermal comfort in cities. Numerical urban climate models are often used to predict the effects of urban form, land cover, and design on urban climate. However, many of these models include a simplified description of urban vegetation and lack components of the hydrological budget. Hence, their ability to assess plant effects on urban climate and hydrology is limited.
In this talk, an overview of numerical climate models at different spatial scales is given, and a novel urban ecohydrological model is introduced, which will be able to assess the combined climatic and hydrological effects of vegetation in cities as well as the feedback of the urban environment on plant performance. With the use of numerical simulations, effects of vegetation cover fraction, type, and traits on climate variables such as outdoor thermal comfort, temperature, and humidity are assessed in different urban densities in a tropical city. The results are synthesised to give recommendations for future research and urban landscape planning.
Please note that registrants will receive an email with a link to join the webinar on Zoom a day before the event. The webinar will also be live-streamed on the IWP Facebook Page.