Impact of urban configurations on air temperature in Kuala Lumpur

Abstract

Rapid population growth causes the trend of high-rise buildings in the urban area. The modification of urban surface generates the poor scenario of microclimate, which mainly contributes to the increase of Urban Heat Island (UHI) intensity. UHI mitigation strategy is urged among planners and designers to ensure urban development meets the climate change adaptation agenda. Urban climatology studies mostly focus on the urban canyon geometry of the Height to Width (H/W) aspect ratio and Sky View Factor (SVF). There is lacking justification on the relationship of urban configurations and microclimate in the hot and humid region, especially in Kuala Lumpur. This study aims to investigate the impact of urban configurations on the air temperature. Four urban configurations; Courtyard, U, Courtyard Canyon and Canyon were simulated by using ENVI-met 3.1. The urban configurations study was set in two sites located in Kuala Lumpur with the East – West and North – South canyon directions. The results showed that the urban configurations generate impact on the mean of air temperature. The drop of nocturnal air temperature indicated that the UHI was worse in Courtyard configuration in both East – West and North – South canyon directions. The results also confirm that the reduction of the Sky View Factor (SVF) in urban configurations encourage the increase of the UHI intensity. The finding of this study stresses that the solar radiation was majorly influenced by the urban configurations which was significantly correlated to the results of air temperature. The finding suggests planners and designers to strategise the urban configurations according to the setting of the canyon direction during the preliminary design and planning stage.