New urban planning GIS tool developed by NUS to improve urban climate resilience

Singapore, 3 February 2021 – A research team examined the heat balance in the street canyon in Singapore and developed a user-friendly Geographic Information System (GIS) tool to estimate the impact of urban planning on the dispersion of anthropogenic heat.

“The weak removal of anthropogenic heat [heat released to the atmosphere as a result of human activities] is caused by stagnated airflow at urban areas. It is crucial to investigate the effect of urban morphology on anthropogenic heat dispersion to make high-density cities more resilient to future challenges such as an intensive urban heat island effect,” Dr Yuan Chao, Presidential Young Professor, Department of Architecture at the NUS School of Design and Environment, explained.

The research team investigated the transient street air warming procedure and developed a practical GIS-based model to estimate how much and how fast the air temperature will be increased by anthropogenic heat.

By applying this novel model, the impact of urban morphology on anthropogenic heat dispersion was mapped. The dynamic air temperature increment caused by daily heat emissions was visualised in residential areas of Singapore. The maximum temperature increment with normal wind conditions could be about 0.45 degrees Celsius, which has a significant impact on both thermal comfort and public health.

The team produced graphic visualisations of dynamic anthropogenic heat impact on air temperature on residential areas of Singapore using the GIS tool. Dr Yuan observed, “The air temperature increment in residential areas could be even higher in the future due to rapid global warming and urban development. It could increase the risk of residents in tropical cities suffering from more frequent and intensive long-term heat stress and short-term heatwaves.”

The development of the new GIS-based analytical model starts from urban planning indices, and thus avoids the complicated fluid dynamics calculation used in Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation and wind tunnel, both of which are time-consuming, especially for modelling at the urban scale. This model is a cheaper and faster alternative for urban planners to estimate the impact of urban planning and design on anthropogenic heat dispersion.

“Due to the huge uncertainty caused by urbanisation and global warming, the new GIS-based analytical model is a feasible tool to deal with numerous microclimate scenarios to help Singapore stay cool,” shared Dr Yuan.

Source: NUS