Assessment of the Water Pond Cooling Effect on Urban Microclimate: A Parametric Study with Numerical Modeling

Abstract

Effective utilization of urban surface modification and landscaping through appropriate planning and design is becoming increasingly important. In contrast to the large number of studies on urban microclimates, few studies have directly focused on the outdoor thermal environment, in particular those investigating the role of water bodies. To optimize the usage of water bodies and to identify the distinguishing factors that may affect the benefits of cooling, a coupled computational fluid dynamics calculation and surface temperature calculation were used to estimate the cooling influence of water bodies on urban microclimates. The study presented in this paper simulated nine unique cases of a simplified urban neighborhood to evaluate the unique effect of different water pond configurations. In summary, within the urban canyon, the study results highlight the importance of a water body’s configuration and positioning. Relative to prevailing winds, larger water pond surfaces tended to produce a better thermal environment, while equally distributed water ponds seemed to influence a wider area.