A Methodology for the Assessment of the Urban Heat Island Effect by Exploiting the Urban Archetype Approach

Population in urban areas experiences local warming with temperatures higher than in surrounding rural areas due to the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect, which determines risks for human health, and increases in energy consumption. In the literature, it is reported that accurately quantifying the UHI effect at a wider territorial scale is challenging, due to difficulties in acquiring climatic data at microscale and modelling the drivers of UHI while considering the interactions between buildings and their surroundings. This work, developed in the framework of the PRIN2022-PNRR CRiStAll (Climate Resilient Strategies by Archetype-based Urban Energy Modelling) project, aims to overcome this research gap by coupling Urban Building Energy Modelling with urban archetypes, representative urban context configurations at microscale derived by varying urban canyon parameters and assuming building archetypes of different climatic zones, use categories, and construction periods. The methodology presented in the paper is applied to create urban archetypes for the city of Torino (Italy). Key metrics of the urban context are assessed and the UHI effect is evaluated by means of Urban Weather Generator. Energy simulations are then carried out using CitySim Pro to quantify the effect of the UHI on the energy behaviour of buildings at the urban scale. The urban archetype approach is effective for getting outcomes both at a finer spatial resolution, due to the modelling of climatic data at microscale, and with larger spatial coverage, due to the adoption of a bottom-up model that allows mapping of urban areas.