THERMAL COMFORT AND URBAN CLIMATE DUE TO THE MORPHOLOGY OF URBAN PARKS IN ARID ZONES

M. ANGÉLICA RUIZ; ERICA N. CORREA; M. ALICIA CANTÓN

Kassel

Congreso; ISES Solar World Congress 2011; 2011

The International Solar Energy Society

Mendoza city it is the results of a strong integration of green spaces. In this context, the open spaces: parks, plazas and urban forests significantly alter climate patterns of the built environment of this arid zone located in the middle west of Argentina. For this reason, it is important evaluate how the green spaces of the city could be planned in a spatial sense, and how they might be designed, managed and maintained in function of the urban features (climatic and morphological) to obtain the maximum benefit for the local population. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the hydrothermal behaviour of green areas during the summer season and quantify the impact of design of parks over the thermal comfort and the climatic features in Mendoza city. The study has been carried out by means of 29 automatic stations that measure temperature and humidity in four parks and their urban surroundings. Besides, for to explore de impact of architectonic design of the parks, three types of areas present in the interior of each park have been evaluated (anthropogenic, grassland and forest). The results show that thermal behaviour and thermal comfort degree are clearly driven by the configuration of each park and the use which gives each sector. Besides, demonstrate the beneficial effect of parks on the nocturnal cooling of the urban fabric, this behaviour is of particular interest since the heat island phenomenon in this city reaches its maximum expression during the cooling period. Finally, prove that the landscape design of green spaces it is more important for parks of lesser dimensions.