Study on the Coupling Relationship between Thermal Comfort and Urban Center Spatial Morphology in Summer

• Published in: Sustainability Vol. 15; no. 6; p. 5084
• Main Authors: Yi, Pei, Liu, Luyun, Huang, Yu, Zhang, Minhuan, Liu, Huaiwan, Bedra, Komi Bernard
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 01.03.2023
• Subjects: Case studies; Cities; Climate change; Correlation; Heat; Morphology; Planning; Roads & highways; Sampling; Shadows; Software; Summer; Temperature; Thermal simulation; Urban areas; Urban environments; China
• ISSN: 2071-1050; 2071-1050
• DOI: 10.3390/su15065084

The high-density development of urban centers has worsened outdoor thermal comfort in many cities. In this study, ENVI-met was used to simulate thermal comfort, and the universal thermal climate index (UTCI) and eight urban morphological indicators were calculated at 348 sampling points in the urban center. The correlation results are shown as follows: (1) Thermal comfort is significantly and positively correlated with impervious surface, green area ratio, and sky openness, showing a strong negative correlation with building density, floor area ratio, and shadow hours. (2) The UTCI value decreases by 0.998 °C for every 1 h increase in shadow hours, increases by 0.746 °C for every 10% increase in sky view factor, decreases by 0.462 °C when the building density increases by 10%, and decreases by 0.596 °C for every 10% increase in the impervious area ratio. (3) The sampling points with better thermal comfort have similar spatial characteristics such as higher building density, higher volume ratio, smaller green area ratio, longer shadow hours, and smaller sky openness. (4) In the planning and design of urban centers, increasing shade can improve the shadow hours in the environment. Specifically, large open sites should be avoided.