Project description
Urban heat island (UHI) effect in which urban areas exhibit higher temperatures than the surrounding rural or suburban areas is well documented in hundreds of cities around the world including major cities in Australia. Darwin, the capital of Australia's Northern Territory, suffers from high ambient temperatures and low outdoor thermal comfort conditions for the most part of the year as ambient temperatures may exceed 37°C, while humidity easily exceeds 80 %. In parallel, because of the positive thermal balance, the CBD area presents about 2 – 3 °C, higher temperature than the airport area. This urban overheating has serious consequences on thermal comfort, energy consumption, health and the economy and thus affects negatively the sustainability and liveability of cities. The aim of this project is reducing urban overheating of the city of Darwin, by identifying hot spots in the city, developing and evaluating appropriate UHI mitigation scenarios (thirteen mitigation scenarios involving UHI mitigation strategies such as cool roofs and pavements, street shading, green roofs, greenery and evaporative systems) and propose optimum UHI mitigation solutions by using widespread aerial and ground monitoring campaign.