Quantifying the influence of nature-based solutions on building cooling and heating energy demand: A climate specific review

Q. He, F. Tapia and A. Reith

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 2023, vol. 186, issue C

Abstract: Implementing Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) is a promising way to reduce building energy demand and facilitates the achievement of United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 7, as they provide shading, evapotranspiration cooling and other influences on buildings. Although this field has attracted much attention, uncertainty persists regarding the potential of different NBS types to impact building energy demand in different climate conditions. To clarify this uncertainty, 101 papers were studied based on the Web of Science and Scopus databases. The current status analysis explored the development state of this field. Building energy performance analysis evaluated the potential reduction in cooling and heating energy in different climates by applying different NBS types at building scale. The review revealed that the cooling energy saving potential of NBS varies from 3% to 90%, while the potential reduction in heating energy demand ranges from 0.58% to 60%. The extent of the reduction in both cases is dependent on the NBS type and climate. Notably, some NBS types may lead to an increase in heating energy demand by between 5.9% and 25% in climates with short and mild winters. This review found that maximizing the energy-saving potential of NBS requires a comprehensive consideration of multiple factors rather than maximizing an individual factor. Further, most studies in this field have only concentrated on a few NBS types and climate zones, resulting in significant differences in research depth among different NBS categories. Future work should focus on neglected NBS types and climates to fully understand their energy-saving potential.

Keywords: Nature-based solutions; Geographic distribution; Building energy performance; Cooling energy demand; Heating energy demand; Climate zones (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032123005178
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:rensus:v:186:y:2023:i:c:s1364032123005178

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/600126/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 600126/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.rser.2023.113660

Access Statistics for this article

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews is currently edited by L. Kazmerski

More articles in Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().