Effective monitoring and warning of Urban Heat Island effect on the indoor thermal risk in Bucharest (Romania)

• Published in: Energy and buildings 2016-09, Vol.127, p.452-468
• Main Authors: Constantinescu, Dan, Cheval, Sorin, Caracaş, Gabriela, Dumitrescu, Alexandru
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Climate hazard; Excessive thermal regime risk; Excessive thermal regime warning; Housing units vulnerability; Urban Heat Island
• ISSN: 0378-7788
• DOI: 10.1016/j.enbuild.2016.05.068

Extreme hot events and heat waves occur frequently in Bucharest during the warm season, triggering significant heat stress and thermal risks, especially in buildings with inappropriate ventilation, while climate change scenarios agree upon the warming trend along the next decades. This study investigates the impact of the Urban Heat Island (UHI) on the thermal regime of buildings, in order to develop a warning system capable to issue early warnings when the thermal risk reaches high levels in Bucharest. The warnings should be accurate regarding the intensity of the risk, the temporal fit and location, and complex information is compiled (e.g. air and land surface temperature, land cover, buildings and flat characteristics). Ground-based meteorological data and satellite products were used for computing the ambient temperature over several test areas for the summer months, and the indoor climate was dynamically modelled with an hourly resolution. The thermal risk was determined using standardized comfort indices, e.g. Predicted Mean Vote (PMV) and Predicted Percentage of Dissatisfied (PPD), and the specific thermal and functional characteristics of the buildings.