Lan Ding, Henry Petersen, William Craft, Shamila Haddad, Komali Yenneti, Riccardo Paolini, Mattheos Santamouris, Paul Osmond, Alan Peters, Peter Newon, Stephen Glackin
This project aims to develop a robust and tangible microclimate and urban heat island mitigation decision-support tool that bridges the gap between research on urban microclimates and its practical application. The web-based UHI-DS tool can be accessed at: http://uhimitigationindex.fbe.unsw.edu.au/uhitool/index.html
Project objectives are:
- to provide governments and built environment industries with a decision-support tool to inform urban policy, development assessment and planning practices related to potential building and urban interventions, used to cool streetscapes and cities, decrease energy consumption, protect the population’s vulnerable health-wise, and improve conditions of comfort.
- to ntegrate scientific models with a range of mitigation techniques to perform urban heat island mitigation analysis across both building and urban scales, such as building coatings and roofs, urban form and density, greenery and infrastructure.
- to develop an Urban Heat Island Mitigation Performance Index to support governments in establishing performance targets for their planning control. The Index will indicate impact on street level temperature, health and mortality, precinct level energy consumption, etc.
Key benefits are:
- Convenient, easy and efficient to use by governments, developers and planners to mitigate vulnerability to climate change, in particular urban heat island mitigation.
- Support evidence-based decisions and strategies relating to low carbon and climate adaptation in urban development processes.
- Mapping decision-making processes and key influencers throughout the building process.
- Fills the gap between research and practical application of urban microclimates.
This project is funded by CRC for Low Carbon Living. Govnerment and Industry Parters and Steering Committee comprise: City of Sydney, Greater Sydney Commission, OEH, Landcom, Parramatta City Council, Campbelltown Council, WSROC, SSROC, Sydney Water, Inner West Council, Waverley Council, NSW Spatial Services, Stockland, BlueScope Steel, AECOM, PSMA, UNSW and Swinburne Unviersity.