The cooling and energy saving effect of landscape design parameters of urban park in summer: A case of Beijing, China

• Published in: Energy and buildings 2017-08, Vol.149, p.91-100
• Main Authors: Xu, Xiyan, Sun, Shibo, Liu, Wei, García, Ester Higueras, He, Li, Cai, Qi, Xu, Sijing, Wang, Jingjing, Zhu, Jianning
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Beijing; Building design; Building envelopes; Carbon dioxide; Climate change; Construction materials; Cooling effect; Cork; Ecological effects; Ecological monitoring; Emissions; Energy conservation; Energy consumption; Energy recovery; Energy resources; Energy saving; Energy sources; Feasibility studies; Green buildings; Insulation; Landscape parameters; Natural gas; Optimization; Perlite; Sensitivity analysis; Sulfur dioxide; Thermal comfort; Urban green spaces; Water demand; Wood; Wool
• ISSN: 0378-7788; 1872-6178
• DOI: 10.1016/j.enbuild.2017.05.052

[Display omitted] •The cooling effect of various landscape parameters in an urban park is investigated.•Thermal comfort of people caused by each landscape parameter is studied.•Questionnaire survey on the real thermal perception toward visitors is carried out.•The relationship between discomfort index and real dissatisfied perception is discussed.•The heat reduction and thus energy-saving effect of landscape parameters are estimated. Urban green spaces have been demonstrated to bring environmental benefits from the distinctive effects of various landscape parameters. The current study investigates the cooling and energy saving effect of landscape parameters in an urban park of Beijing during a hot summer. Continuous in-site microclimate data of individual parameters including grass, water body, tree and artificial shading device (including Chinese style pavilion) and certain combination like grass+tree, water body+tree and shading device+tree were collected. Thermal perception of people caused by each parameter was studied according to both the measured data and thermal sensation votes from questionnaire survey. Based on those field measurements, the heat reduced and thus the energy saved by each parameter are estimated. The results indicate that manmade shading device performs the best cooling and energy saving effect among those individual parameters, and shading device+tree shows the optimal effect among all the chosen ones. The calculated objective thermal discomfort indexes show certain deviation from the real responses of the visitors. The heat reduced by each landscape parameter during a measuring period of 6h from 10:00 to 16:00h in the current case sequence to an order of water body (11,298Jm−3)