Το work with title Validation using eddy covariance data and SWEUS model for the calculation of the energy balance at the center of Heraklion city by Panagiotakis Emmanouil is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
Bibliographic Citation
Emmanouil Panagiotakis, "Validation using eddy covariance data and SWEUS model for the calculation of the energy balance at the center of Heraklion city", Master Thesis, School of Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Crete, Chania, Greece, 2020
https://doi.org/10.26233/heallink.tuc.87423
Present paper aims to study the impact of Nature Based Solutions (NBS) on the urban environment. The Surface Urban Energy and Water balance Scheme (SUEWS) is used to quantify the impact of NBS in the city of Heraklion, Crete, Greece, a densely built urban area. Local meteorological data and data from an Eddy Covariance flux tower installed in the city center are used for the model simulation and evaluation. Five different scenarios are tested by replacing the city's roofs and pavements with green infrastructure, i.e. trees and grass, and water bodies. NBS impact evaluation is based on the changes of air temperature above 2m from the ground, relative humidity and energy fluxes. A decrease of the air temperature is revealed with the highest reduction (2.3%) occurring when the pavements are replaced with grass for all scenarios. The reduction of the air temperature is followed by a decrease in turbulent sensible heat flux. For almost all cases, an increase of the relative humidity is noticed, accompanied by a considerable increase of the turbulent latent heat flux. Therefore, NBS in cities change the energy balance significantly and modify the urban environment for the citizens' benefit.