Validation of UWG and ENVI-met models in an Abu Dhabi District, based on site measurements
Name
sustainability-11-04378-v2.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
5 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
0f0e9190167ebf90455e4323aa4ef9e6
Author(s)
Bande, Lindita
Afshari, Afshin
Al Masri, Dina
Jha, Mukesh
Norford, Leslie Keith
Tsoupos, Alexandros
Marpu, Prashanth
Pasha, Yosha
Armstrong, Peter
Date Issued
August 2019
Journal
Sustainability
Publisher
MDPI AG
Citation
Bande, Lindita, et al. “Validation of UWG and ENVI-Met Models in an Abu Dhabi District, Based on Site Measurements.” Sustainability 11, 16 (August 2019): 4378. © 2019 The Authors
Version
Final published version
Abstract
The city of Abu Dhabi is growing every year in population, urban extent and energy demand. This research focuses on the application of two simulation programs to estimate changes in urban climate associated with continued development in Abu Dhabi: The Urban Weather Generator (UWG) and ENVI-met. Simulation with these two software packages are validated with the site data measured in downtown Abu Dhabi. A comparison analysis (in the different seasons) between the rural data, the simulation output, and the site measurements shows the variations of the UHI in this Middle Eastern city and the potential of the validated tools. The main aims of this study are: (a) to make a seasonal validation of the UWG for the city of Abu Dhabi (referring to urban-rural available data). The tool was previously validated for a year (no seasonal division) for Abu Dhabi, Toulouse, Basel, Singapore, Rome and Barcelona. The simulations are based on the 2016 version of the Urban Weather Generator. The analysis is separated into three main seasons (instead of the full year): winter, spring, summer. (b) To make a seasonal validation and improve the second tool evaluated in this study, ENVI-met 4.0. The software can simulate urban temperature, humidity and wind speed. Guides are proposed for the enhancement of the accuracy of both estimation procedures. Referring to the results, UWG tends to overestimate the canyon temperature during the summer and has a more realistic estimation on the winter season. ENVI-met has better estimations of temperatures during the summer season compared to UWG. Finally, the UWG weather file contributes a more detailed energy model on a mesoscale model. It considers the seasonal effect and shows the impact of the climate on profiling the UHI phenomena. ENVI-met needs improvement in calculating the anthropogenic heat and in calculation of the mean radiant temperature.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Architecture
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/su11164378
