Modeling Exposure to Heat Stress with a Simple Urban Model

Abstract

As a first step in modeling health-related urban well-being (UrbWellth), a mathematical model is constructed that dynamically simulates heat stress exposure of commuters in an idealized city. This is done by coupling the Simple Urban Radiation Model (SURM), which computes the mean radiant temperature ( T m r t ), with a newly developed multi-class multi-mode traffic model. Simulation results with parameters chosen for the city of Hamburg for a hot summer day show that commuters are potentially most exposed to heat stress in the early afternoon when T m r t has its maximum. Varying the morphology with respect to street width and building height shows that a more compact city configuration reduces T m r t and therefore the exposure to heat stress. The impact resulting from changes in the city structure on traffic is simulated to determine the time spent outside during the commute. While the time in traffic jams increases for compact cities, the total commuting time decreases due to shorter distances between home and work place. Concerning adaptation measures, it is shown that increases in the albedo of the urban surfaces lead to an increase in daytime heat stress. Dramatic increases in heat stress exposure are found when both, wall and street albedo, are increased.