Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Almost 4500 m
2
of cool pavements were used to rehabilitate a major urban park in
the greater Athens area. CFD were used to simulate the specific climatic conditions
in the area before and after the installation of the new pavements. After valida-
tion against two sets of the collected experimental data, comparative calculations
were performed with and without the cool pavements under the same climatic
boundary conditions. It was found that the extensive application of reflective
pavements, under specific climatic conditions, may reduce the peak daily ambient
temperature during a typical summer day by up to 1.9 K, while surface temper-
atures were reduced by up to 12
◦
C. The overall analysis showed that the use of
cool pavements presents an efficient mitigation strategy to reduce the intensity of
heat islands in urban areas and improve the global environmental quality of open
areas (Santamouris et al., 2012).
•
19.4 CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE PROSPECTS
The phenomenon of heat islands is one of the more documented aspects of climate
change. Recent research has highlighted the main characteristics of the phenomenon
in many cities of the world. Heat island increases the consumption of energy for cool-
ing purposes, decreases comfort conditions in indoor and outdoor spaces, increases
the concentration of specific pollutants and puts the population, especially the more
vulnerable, at risk.
To counterbalance the impact of heat island, several mitigation techniques and
technologies have been proposed, employed and optimized, and are in general available
to the scientific community. The use of reflective materials for roofs, pavements and
urban infrastructure, together with the use of green spaces for open areas and roofs,
and the use of heat sinks such as ground and water, are the more efficient means among
the available mitigation techniques. Important research has been carried out in recent
times and the quality of the systems and materials has been improved significantly.
Most of the proposed systems are now available on the market as industrial products.
Important applications of advanced mitigation techniques have been designed,
implemented and monitored during the recent past. Their overall performance has
been found to be quite high and significant decreases in heat island intensity have been
measured.
Although the actual progress of mitigation technologies is important and has been
spectacular, further research is necessary in order to improve the efficiency of the
systems and products, as well as to develop new materials and technologies that may
further enhance the climatic quality of urban spaces.
Finally, synergies among urban climatologists, energy experts and urban plan-
ners should be developed in order to effectively promote future low-carbon cities and
regions.
Nomenclatures/Abbreviations
CFD
Computational Fluid Dynamics
DI
Discomfort index
ITS
Index of thermal stress
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