Determining Favourable and Unfavourable Thermal Areas in Seoul Using In-Situ Measurements: A Preliminary Step towards Developing a Smart City

You Jin Kwon, Dong Kun Lee and Kiseung Lee
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You Jin Kwon: Interdisciplinary Program in Landscape Architecture, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Korea
Dong Kun Lee: Department of Landscape Architecture and Rural System Engineering, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Korea
Kiseung Lee: Graduate School of Public Health, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Korea

Energies, 2019, vol. 12, issue 12, 1-24

Abstract: Urban heat island effects (UHIE) are becoming increasingly widespread, thus, there is an urgent need to address thermal comfort, which significantly influences the daily lives of people. In this study, a means of improving the thermal environment by spatial analysis of heat was implemented to ensure basic thermal comfort in future smart cities. Using Seoul as the study site, the relationship between sensible heat and land cover type was used to identify heat islands in this city. Thereafter, k-means clustering was employed to extract unfavourable and favourable thermal areas. High sensible heat indicates locations where environmental heat needs to be mitigated. Sensible heat distribution data were used for spatial typification to formulate an effective land cover factor to mitigate the UHIE. In-situ net radiation data measured at six sites were utilised to confirm the spatial typification of the thermal environment. It was found that expanding the green space by 1% reduces the sensible heat by 4.9 W/m 2 . Further, the building coverage ratio and green coverage influence the sensible heat in compact residential areas. The study results can be used to establish spatial planning standards to improve the thermal environments of sustainable cities.

Keywords: energy budget; land cover ratio; sensible heat flux; heat mitigation; thermal environment improvement; sustainability; in-situ validation; spatial typification by heat flux (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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