Abstract
Due to increasing urbanization and heat island issues, current cities need to sensibly plan their future developments to preserve the quality of their urban environment. An urban climatic map (UCmap) method can be utilized for this purpose to examine the effectiveness of various urban environmental solutions in improving environmental conditions, particularly in terms of outdoor temperature and human thermal comfort. The available climatic models for both temperature and thermal comfort mapping can be deemed complicated and less user friendly; particularly for practitioners such as urban planners. Hence, the Screening Tool for Estate Environment Evaluation (STEVE Tool) and Thermal Sensation Vote (TSV) models were developed with a motivation to link research findings with urban planners. This paper showcases the models which have been developed as a plug-in for Trimble SketchUp (formerly Google SketchUp and hereinafter simply SketchUp); serving as a straightforward analysis tool for urban planners during the design and feasibility study processes. This plug-in can generate various climatic maps and sectional temperature profiles. Furthermore, it is also equipped with a plants database from the National Parks Board (NParks) and thus is able to calculate the impact of landscaping on temperature and carbon sequestration accordingly. A case study has been provided, using a central business district (CBD) area in Singapore. In the end, the generated UCMaps are able to provide microclimate information for an existing masterplan or urban morphology layout, so that planners or architects can identify the hot spots or problematic areas and then solutions or mitigation strategies can be developed afterwards by analysing the UCMaps.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Alfaro EJ, Gershunov A, Cayan D (2006) Prediction of summer maximum and minimum temperature over the Central and Western United States: the roles of soil moisture and sea surface temperature. J Clim 19(8):1407–1421
Bottyán Z, Unger J (2003) A multiple linear statistical model for estimating the mean maximum urban heat island. Theor Appl Climatol 75:233–243
Fanger PO (1973) Thermal comfort: analysis and applications in environmental engineering. McGraw-Hill, New York
Giridharana R, Laua SSY, Ganesana S, Givonib B (2007) Urban design factors influencing heat island intensity in high-rise high-density environments of Hong Kong. Build Environ 42:3669–3684
Ignatius M, Wong NH, Jusuf SK (2015) Urban microclimate analysis with consideration of local ambient temperature, external heat gain, urban ventilation, and outdoor thermal comfort in the tropics. Sustain Cities Soc 19:121–135
Jusuf SK, Wong NH (2009) Development of empirical models for an estate level air temperature prediction in Singapore. In: Second international conference on countermeasures to urban heat Islands, Berkeley, United States
Jusuf SK, Wong NH (2016) Valuing green spaces as a heat mitigation technique. In: Santamouris M, Kolokotsa D (eds) Urban climate mitigation techniques. Routledge, London, pp 41–62
Katzschner L (1988) The urban climate as a parameter for urban development. Energ Buildings 11:137–147
Katzschner L, Mülder J (2008) Regional climatic mapping as a tool for sustainable development. J Environ Manag 87:262–267
Kolokotroni M, Giannitsaris I, Watkins R (2006) The effect of the London urban heat island on building summer cooling demand and night ventilation strategies. Sol Energy 80(4):383–392
Lo CP, Quattrochi DA (2003) Land-use and land-cover change, urban heat island phenomenon, and health implications: a remote sensing approach. Photogramm Eng Remote Sens 69(9):1053–1063
Matuschek O, Matzarakis A (2010) Estimation of sky view factor in complex environment as a tool for applied climatological studies. In: Matzarakis A, Mayer H, Chmielewski F (eds) 7th conference on biometeorology. Meteorological Institute, Albert-Ludwigs-University of Freiburg, Freiburg, pp 535–540
Matzarakis A (2005) Country report: urban climate research in Germany, pp 4–6
Matzarakis A, Fröhlich D (2010) Skyhelios. Meteorological Institute, Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg, Freiburg
Matzarakis A, Rutz F, Mayer H (2007) Modelling radiation fluxes in simple and complex environments – Application of the RayMan model. Int J Biometeorol 51:323–334
Ng E, Chao R, Katzschner L, Yau R (2009) Urban climatic studies for hot and humid tropical coastal city of Hong Kong. In: The 7th international conference on urban climate, Yokohama
Oke TR (1987) Boundary layer climates. Routledge, London
Ren C, Ng E, Katzschner L (2011) Urban climatic map studies: a review. Int J Climatol 31:2213–2233
Rohington E (2005) Thermal comfort implications of urbanization in a warm-humid city: the Colombo Metropolitan Region (CMR), Sri Lanka. Build Environ 40(12):1591–1601
Schneider SH (1992) Introduction to climate modeling. In: Climate system modeling. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, MA, pp 3–26
Taha H, Chang S-c, Akbari H (2000) Meteorological and air quality impacts of heat island mitigation measures in three U.S. cities. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley
Tan PY, Sia A (2009) Leaf area index of tropical plants. National Parks Board, Singapore
Tan PY, Yeo B, Yip WX, Lua HS (2009) Carbon storage & sequestration by urban trees in Singapore, centre for urban greenery and ecology. National Parks Board, Singapore
Tanaka T, Moriyama M (2011) Urban environmental climate maps for supporting environmental and urban planning works in local government. AIJ J Technol Des 17(36):687–692
Unger J (2009) Connection between urban heat island and sky view factor approximated by a software tool on a 3D urban database. Int J Environ Pollut 36:59–80
Wong NH (2015) Grand challenges in sustainable design and construction. Frontiers Built Environ 1
Wong NH, Jusuf SK (2008) GIS-based greenery evaluation on campus master plan. Landsc Urban Plan 84:166–182
Wong NH, Jusuf SK, La Win AA, Thu HK, Negara TS, Wu X (2007) Environmental study of the impact of greenery in an institutional campus in the tropics. Build Environ 42:2949–2970
Wong NH, Jusuf SK, Syafii NI, Chen Y, Hajadi N, Sathyanarayanan H, Manickavasagam YV (2011) Evaluation of the impact of the surrounding urban morphology on building energy consumption. Sol Energy 85:57–71
Yang W, Wong NH, Jusuf SK (2013a) Thermal comfort in outdoor urban spaces in Singapore. Build Environ 59:426–435
Yang W, Wong NH, Zhang G (2013b) A comparative analysis of human thermal conditions in outdoor urban spaces in the summer season in Singapore and Changsha, China. Int J Biometeorol 57:895–907
Acknowledgement
The study is part of the research project “Development of Climatic Mapping Tool for Estate Environmental Evaluation” funded by Jurong Town Corporation (JTC) Singapore under NUS – JTC Industrial Infrastructure Innovation Centre. The STEVE Tool plugin for SketchUp was developed by nForce Solutions Pte. Ltd.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Jusuf, S.K., Ignatius, M., Wong, N.H., Tan, E. (2017). STEVE Tool Plug-in for SketchUp: A User-Friendly Microclimatic Mapping Tool for Estate Development. In: Karyono, T., Vale, R., Vale, B. (eds) Sustainable Building and Built Environments to Mitigate Climate Change in the Tropics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49601-6_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49601-6_9
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-49600-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-49601-6
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)