The ‘cooling urban water environments’ concept: potential for application in practice

ABSTRACT

Research indicates that water in small water bodies has negligible cooling effects, but also that its surrounding environment can be designed to become cooler by applying the ‘cooling urban water environments’ concept. However, this concept was created for generic urban environments and not tested in practice. This study applies this concept to a specific urban environment, tests its micrometeorological performance and surveys how urban designers and landscape architects regard its usability. The results indicate that the ‘cooling urban water environments’ concept can lead to site-specific cooling effects and that there is willingness amongst practitioners to apply this concept.

KEYWORDS:

• Urban climate
• urban design
• urban water bodies
• climate-responsive design
• practice and implementation

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to express their gratitude to the Wageningen University MSc thesis student Man Du, for her contribution to the GreenQuays climate-responsive masterplan.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The micrometeorological modelling was supported by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research [Grant 864.14.007]. The GreenQuays project is supported (co-financed) by the European Regional Development Fund through the Urban Innovation Actions Initiative [Grant UIA04-139 GreenQuays].