Cooling Singapore

The Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect is a phenomenon that tends to affect cities with high population density, such as Singapore. The temperature rises are significant and impact liveability, health and economic aspects.

Cooling Singapore is a multidisciplinary intra-CREATE project, with collaborations from NUS, TUMCREATE, Singapore-ETH Centre and SMART. We use modelling tools and field measurements to better understand the sources of heat, find solutions to mitigate the UHI and improve outdoor thermal comfort (OTC).

Goal

Roadmap with Actionable Knowledge

Long-term and short-term mitigation measures to reduce uhi and improve outdoor thermal comfort.

Roadmap for R&D

Identifying knowledge and technology gaps, to steer future r&d activities.

UHI Task Force

Local uhi experts and government agency representatives, to exchange information, share insights, and discuss scenarios.

Models and Results

The above map indicates the intensity of the Urban Heat Island (UHI) in Singapore at 5PM. This kind of map is important to analyse mitigation strategies. With changes of the model inputs, one is able to observe how they affect the outputs (Urban Heat Island) and study the possible best strategies to be implemented in real life.

This map represents the Anthropogenic Heat released by buildings in the CBD area, which is ejected outside by the air-conditioning systems. This waste heat becomes concentrated and is one of the reasons Urban Heat Island is more intense in this area.

The above shown tool uses the concept of risk assessment to combine outdoor comfort with land use to help urban planners evaluate different strategies. For example, in a courtyard as the one presented, it is desired that the outdoor comfort is improved in areas with more human activity, such as playgrounds