Study of changes in air temperature due to variations in road surface and afforestation in a section of the Center of Niterói

Abstract

The present work was developed within the project "Healthy Niterói: sun, clean energy, climate and rain in urban space" at the Laboratório de Conservação de Energia e Conforto Ambiental (LabCECA) of the Universidade Federal Fluminense, under the Programa de Desenvolvimento de Projetos Aplicados (PDPA). Funded by the municipality of Niterói, it aims to inform public policies in the city. Simulations of the effect of changes in flooring material and street afforestation in a 64 hectare downtown area were performed to evaluate the effects on the local microclimate. The simulation was performed with ENVI-met 5.1 software for three cases: Base Case or 0, depicting the city stretch with its real shape and physical properties; Case 1, which aimed to verify the quality of the tree models provided by the software; and Case 2, in which the microclimatic behavior of the modeled area was verified according to its reality, but with a change only in the lining material of the roads, in which we used light-colored material. The results attest that the use of lighter colored flooring on the city streets produces a reduction in air temperature at 1.25m in height by about 2.0oC at 4 pm on a hot summer day.