Jixuan Chen


Last Name

Chen

First Name

Jixuan

ORCID

0000-0001-6137-4936

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2024 - 20252
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Publications 1 - 2 of 2
  • Modelling pavement watering effects on urban heat mitigation with a fast urban climate model
    Item type: Journal Article
    Chen, Jixuan; Bach, Peter M.; Leitão, João P. (2025)
    Sustainable Cities and Society
    Pavement watering is considered as a possible solution to mitigate urban heat and adapt urban environments to climate change. Yet, modelling tools to support the planning of such practices, especially at larger scales, are scarce. This study presents the integration of pavement watering dynamics into an existing urban climate model. The proposed new model was evaluated against measurements as well as modelling data with a good agreement. We then tested our integrated approach with different input information to ensure the robustness and reliability of its results, showing that a reduction of 15 °C in surface temperature and up to 2 °C in air temperature can be induced by wetting impervious pavements. Results also provide some first insights into possible best practices for pavement watering and surface and air temperatures reduction. Finally, a city-scale simulation demonstrated the potential impact of scaling up the pavement watering simulation process. The proposed model opens up new opportunities for further understanding of the cooling impact and water demand of pavement watering practices, offering new approaches to smart planning of heat mitigation measures for more liveable cities.
  • Investigating the efficacy of a fast urban climate model for spatial planning of green and blue spaces for heat mitigation
    Item type: Journal Article
    Chen, Jixuan; Bach, Peter Marcus; Nice, Kerry A.; et al. (2024)
    Science of The Total Environment
    Problems caused by urban heat have prompted the exploration of urban greenery and blue spaces for heat mitigation. Various numerical models can simulate heat-related processes, but their use as support-tools to urban planners remains underexplored, particularly at the city-scale, due to high computational demand and complexity of such models. This study investigates the spatial relationships between urban heat, urban form and urban green and blue spaces with the fast climate model TARGET (The Air-temperature Response to Green/blue-infrastructure Evaluation Tool), which only requires minimal inputs of standard meteorological data, land cover and building geometry data. Using the City of Zurich as our case study, we: (i) validated the TARGET model against air temperature measurements from private sensor networks, (ii) performed a sensitivity analysis to identify key variables affecting urban heat, and (iii) investigated urban heat relationships with blue-green cover at locations frequented by pedestrians. Presence of urban green and blue spaces across the region shows potential for reducing local air temperatures by up to 5.2 °C (with urban forest). Investigating this relationship at different locations in the city revealed key districts that should potentially be targeted for reduction of pedestrian heat-impacts, due to their high pedestrian traffic, fewer green and blue spaces and high daytime air temperatures. Our results not only provide insights into the cooling effect of different amounts of green and blue features in the urban environment, but also demonstrates the application and integration potential of simplified models like TARGET to support the planning of more liveable future cities.
Publications 1 - 2 of 2