Urban forestry

Summary

Urban forestry is the care and management of single trees and tree populations in urban settings for the purpose of improving the urban environment. Urban forestry involves both planning and management, including the programming of care and maintenance operations of the urban forest. Urban forestry advocates the role of trees as a critical part of the urban infrastructure. Urban foresters plant and maintain trees, support appropriate tree and forest preservation, conduct research and promote the many benefits trees provide. Urban forestry is practiced by municipal and commercial arborists, municipal and utility foresters, environmental policymakers, city planners, consultants, educators, researchers and community activists. Benefits Environmental and health impacts Heat waves cause 1,300 deaths each year in the United States alone, which is more than any other weather-related event. As temperatures continue to rise due to global warming, we can expect to see

Official source

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_forestry

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Tree effects on urban microclimate: Diurnal, seasonal, and climatic temperature differences explained by separating radiation, evapotranspiration, and roughness effects

Paolo Burlando, Matthias Roth

Increasing urban tree cover is an often proposed mitigation strategy against urban heat as trees are expected to cool cities through evapotranspiration and shade provision. However, trees also modify wind flow and urban aerodynamic roughness, which can potentially limit heat dissipation. Existing studies show a varying cooling potential of urban trees in different climates and times of the day. These differences are so far not systematically explained as partitioning the individual tree effects is challenging and impossible through observations alone. Here, we conduct numerical experiments removing and adding radiation, evapotranspiration, and aerodynamic roughness effects caused by urban trees using a mechanistic urban ecohydrological model. Simulations are presented for four cities in different climates (Phoenix, Singapore, Melbourne, Zurich) considering the seasonal and diurnal cycles of air and surface temperatures. Results show that evapotranspiration of well-watered trees alone can decrease local 2 m air temperature at maximum by 3.1– 5.8 °C in the four climates during summer. Further cooling is prevented by stomatal closure at peak temperatures as high vapour pressure deficits limit transpiration. While shading reduces surface temperatures, the interaction of a non-transpiring tree with radiation can increase 2 m air temperature by up to 1.6 – 2.1 °C in certain hours of the day at local scale, thus partially counteracting the evapotranspirative cooling effect. Furthermore, in the analysed scenarios, which do not account for tree wind blockage effects, trees lead to a decrease in urban roughness, which inhibits turbulent energy exchange and increases air temperature during daytime. At night, single tree effects are variable likely due to differences in atmospheric stability within the urban canyon. These results explain reported diurnal, seasonal and climatic differences in the cooling effects of urban trees, and can guide future field campaigns, planning strategies, and species selection aimed at improving local microclimate using urban greenery.

2021

An urban ecohydrological model to quantify the effect of vegetation on urban climate and hydrology (UT&C v1.0)

Paolo Burlando, Matthias Roth

Increasing urbanization is likely to intensify the urban heat island effect, decrease outdoor thermal comfort, and enhance runoff generation in cities. Urban green spaces are often proposed as a mitigation strategy to counteract these adverse effects, and many recent developments of urban climate models focus on the inclusion of green and blue infrastructure to inform urban planning. However, many models still lack the ability to account for different plant types and oversimplify the interactions between the built environment, vegetation, and hydrology. In this study, we present an urban ecohydrological model, Urban Tethys-Chloris (UT&C), that combines principles of ecosystem modelling with an urban canopy scheme accounting for the biophysical and ecophysiological characteristics of roof vegetation, ground vegetation, and urban trees. UT&C is a fully coupled energy and water balance model that calculates 2 m air temperature, 2 m humidity, and surface temperatures based on the infinite urban canyon approach. It further calculates the urban hydrological fluxes in the absence of snow, including transpiration as a function of plant photosynthesis. Hence, UT&C accounts for the effects of different plant types on the urban climate and hydrology, as well as the effects of the urban environment on plant well-being and performance. UT&C performs well when compared against energy flux measurements of eddy-covariance towers located in three cities in different climates (Singapore, Melbourne, and Phoenix). A sensitivity analysis, performed as a proof of concept for the city of Singapore, shows a mean decrease in 2 m air temperature of 1.1 ∘C for fully grass-covered ground, 0.2 ∘C for high values of leaf area index (LAI), and 0.3 ∘C for high values of Vc,max (an expression of photosynthetic capacity). These reductions in temperature were combined with a simultaneous increase in relative humidity by 6.5 %, 2.1 %, and 1.6 %, for fully grass-covered ground, high values of LAI, and high values of Vc,max, respectively. Furthermore, the increase of pervious vegetated ground is able to significantly reduce surface runoff.

2020

During the last century, urban pollution has increased with the growth of cities. Urban air quality has become a high priority as it is directly linked to concerns such as human exposure and health. The present work is dedicated to urban air quality modeling with focus on urban meteorology. The main goal is to improve meteorological and air quality simulations in urban areas. Based on measurements and numerical air quality simulations, Chapter 3 describes the meteorological situation and tests an emission inventory for an ozone pollution episode in Mexico City (2 March 1997), in order to determine the principal factors to be accounted in an air quality study. The Mexico City case shows the great influence of meteorological conditions and pollutant emissions on air quality. A thorough understanding of the phenomena governing the meteorological conditions, like small scale convergence, and an accurate emission inventory validated by VOC measurements in the city, are sensitive elements in an air quality study. In Chapter 4, the presence of an Urban Heat Island (UHI) is underlined over the city of Basel (Switzerland) with the BUBBLE measurements. Further on, the ability of aLMo (the operational weather prediction model of MeteoSwiss) to reproduce the effect of a city on the boundary layer atmospheric flow fields is investigated. Results show that aLMo is not able to reproduce the UHI and hence that its surface scheme based on the Monin-Obukhov Similarity Theory (MOST) is not adapted for the urban areas. Therefore, the Buildings Effects Parametrization (BEP) which has been developed by Martilli et al.(2002) especially for urban areas, is implemented in aLMo. Results show that alMo is now able to reproduce the main behavior of the urban boundary layer as the UHI and BEP has hence a real enhancement potential for aLMo. Chapter 5 shows the sensitivity of aLMo with respect to its vertical resolution. In order to limit the sensitivity of aLMo to the grid resolution, BEP is modified. The mesoscale model furnishes the upper boundary conditions for the inner calculation of BEP. That is, BEP recalculates independently the vertical profiles of wind, temperature and energy based on the surface fluxes of momentum, heat and turbulent kinetic energy. The results obtained show a decrease in the sensitivity to the resolution and a better agreement with the measurements. Furthermore, the modified version of BEP gives additional meteorological fields (temperature, wind and TKE) in the urban canopy. The computed temperature in the urban canopy shows a good agreement with measurements in a Basel street canyon. This work shows that it is not necessary to have a high resolution for taking into account modification of the atmospheric flow fields induced by a city.

EPFL2007

An urban ecohydrological model to quantify the effect of vegetation on urban climate and hydrology (UT&C v1.0)

Paolo Burlando, Matthias Roth

2020

Tree effects on urban microclimate: Diurnal, seasonal, and climatic temperature differences explained by separating radiation, evapotranspiration, and roughness effects

Paolo Burlando, Matthias Roth

2021