Improving urban sustainability through microscale configuration of green infrastructure

Shubham Kumar Verma (), Chirag Nagar () and Sushobhan Sen ()
Additional contact information
Shubham Kumar Verma: Marwadi University
Chirag Nagar: Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar, Palaj
Sushobhan Sen: Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar, Palaj

Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, 2025, vol. 30, issue 7, No 15, 28 pages

Abstract: Abstract With rapid urbanization and population expansion, the urban microclimate is becoming one of the most important determinants of urban sustainability. Uncontrolled urban growth often leads to land use and land cover changes, intensifying urban heat, altering wind patterns, and causing seasonal microclimatic variations. These changes reduce human comfort, increase cooling loads and elevate energy consumption, thus making cities major contributors to climate change. To address these challenges, the adoption of sustainable practices is essential. Green Infrastructure (GI) is one such potential strategy. However, its efficacy is highly dependent on spatial distribution, coverage ratio, seasonality and building configuration, which makes it necessary to consider at the neighbourhood scale. This study employs Computational Fluid Dynamics to assess the year-round impact of GI on microclimate regulations in a prototypical urban neighbourhood in hot-arid climatic conditions of Ahmedabad, India. It also involves investigating the effects of GI on annual energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions. The study also introduced the comfort energy performance index (CEPI) to holistically assess performance to determine the influence of different spatial distributions and coverage ratios on an urban domain. The results reported that implementing GI led to variations in air temperature, energy consumption, and carbon dioxide emissions, ranging from approximately -4 to +1 $$^o$$ C, -30 to +4 %, and -25 to +5 %, respectively. These findings emphasize the importance of strategic GI placement, as improper configuration of GI can lead to limited or even adverse effects. Ultimately, the insights from this study can inform urban planners and policymakers, providing a pathway to mitigate urban heat, lower energy consumption, and address climate change through GI interventions.

Keywords: Green infrastructure; Computational fluid dynamics (CFD); Energy consumption; Microclimate; Sustainability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11027-025-10253-6 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:spr:masfgc:v:30:y:2025:i:7:d:10.1007_s11027-025-10253-6

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11027

DOI: 10.1007/s11027-025-10253-6

Access Statistics for this article

Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change is currently edited by Robert Dixon

More articles in Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().