UMEP - A fast responsive, modelling system for urban climatology and climate sensitive planning applications

Considering climate issues in the overall planning process makes it possible to reduce or enhance some of the effects related to human health and energy consumption in urban areas. Models used to describe the spatial variations of the urban climate at local and micro scale is either too complex, only looking at a fixed scale and/or has only incorporated a few on the important factors which is needed for making an accurate evaluation of the consequences of different urban planning strategies. Also, existing models are in general non user-friendly not suitable for practitioners.

The objective of this project is to examine the consequences of various urban design measures with regards to climate and thermal comfort conditions at the street canyon to city scale. This will be accomplished by creating a coupled modeling system working at different scales taking into account all the essential parameters that influence outdoor human comfort. The modeling system will be used to investigate the interrelationship of scales with regards to urban climate and outdoor thermal comfort. This new modeling system will be able to give fast responsive information on how different planning and design strategies affect the local climate and outdoor human comfort in urban settings.

This project is carried out in collaboration with stakeholders for the purpose of transforming the findings into a user-friendly tool based on a practitioner perspective suitable for sensitive climate planning.