A study on the effect of vertical greening on the thermal environment of street canyons based on ENVI-met simulation

Abstract

Vertical greening is one of the effective measures to improve the microclimate and air quality of high-density urban street canyons, and its impact on the thermal environment is closely related to the street canyon morphology. In this paper, based on the characteristics of high-density urban street canyons in the context of Shenzhen City, 12 sets of cases (two orientations, two aspect ratios, and three height-to-width ratios) were simulated and designed using ENVI-met software to study the effects of vertical greening on the thermal environment of buildings under different street canyon morphologies, and to summarize the impact of vertical greening on the microclimate of different street canyons. The results of the study show that the orientation of the street canyon is the most influential factor in the thermal efficiency of vertical greening under the street canyon geometry with the same amount of greening and that the vertical greening effect of east-west oriented street canyons is generally better than that of north-south oriented street canyons in terms of cooling, humidification, and improvement of thermal comfort at the walking level.