Influence of the Local Urban Environment on the Thermoradiative and Hydrological Behavior of a Garden Lawn

Abstract

Several urban canopy models now incorporate urban vegetation to represent local urban cooling related to natural soil and plant evapotranspiration. Nevertheless, little is known about the realism of simulating these processes and turbulent exchanges within the urban canopy. Here, the coupled modeling of thermal and hydrological exchanges was investigated for a lawn located in an urban environment and for which soil temperature and water content measurements were available. The ISBA diffusive (ISBA-DF) surface–vegetation–atmosphere transfer model is inline coupled to the Town Energy Balance urban canopy model to model mixed urban environments. For the present case study, ISBA-DF was applied to the lawn and first evaluated in its default configuration. Particular attention was then paid to the parameterization of turbulent exchanges above the lawn and to the description of soil characteristics. The results highlighted the importance of taking into account local roughness related to surrounding obstacles for computing the turbulent exchanges over the lawn and simulating realistic surface and soil temperatures. The soil nature and texture vertical heterogeneity are also key properties for simulating the soil water content evolution and water exchanges.