This document describes the method implemented in the ENVI-met NetCDF Extractor (both MATLAB and Python implementations included here for download). The extractor reads a user-provided Inputs EXCEL workbook, selects spatio-temporal subsets of ENVI-met (v5.9) NetCDF outputs, and exports a flattened tabular representation to an EXCEL workbook, with an embedded plot and a LOG sheet (metadata, statistics, and full variable inventory). The approach is intended for reproducibility, robustness to minor input-sheet variations, and scalability via chunked timewise input/output (I/O) for very large selections. ... Read more

This document outlines the workflow for calculating and interpreting common error metrics used in model validation and performance assessments, using the tool: agreement metrics calculator (MATLAB or Python, Version 2.0). The metrics include Mean Squared Error (MSE), Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE), Normalised Root Mean Squared Error (NRMSE), Mean Absolute Error (MAE), Willmott Index of Agreement (d), and the Coefficient of Determination (R2). These indicators are widely applied in engineering, environmental modelling, and urban microclimate studies to quantify the difference between observed and simulated data. Version 1.0 of this tool was developed for an earlier project and is attributed to Gunawardena (2021). ... Read more

This document describes the complete methodology implemented in the MATLAB function Smooth_Wind_Signal (V2.1), for smoothing wind speed (WS) and wind direction (WD) inputs. The workflow reads EnergyPlus/IWEC weather files (EPW), or EnviMET CSV formatted weather input files, applies robust smoothing to the wind signals within a user-defined calendar window, and exports an Excel workbook, diagnostic plots and a revised EPW or EnviMET CSV formatted weather input file, with only the in-window WS and/or WD values modified.

This method includes a configurable wind‑speed (WS) moderating/clamping step that occurs strictly within the defined smoothing window and prior to applying smoothing. When enabled via the Excel input file, WS values inside the selected window that fall below a specified minimum are uplifted to that minimum, and values above a specified maximum are capped to that maximum. The moderated series then feeds the smoothing step, while outside the window the data remains unaltered. Results and logs record whether moderation was applied and how many data points were uplifted/capped.

This revised approach facilitates simulation stability by limiting meteorological forcing WS signal extremes, while preserving diurnal variability and mitigating discontinuities at the 0°/360° signal boundary by smoothing the underlying vector components. The workflow/tool was developed to mitigate meteorological forcing errors in EnviMET or similar CFD approaches, where flow change (WS and WD) limits are needed to maintain simulation stability. ... Read more

This tool generates vertical gradients of wind speed, along with optional temperature and relative humidity, from EnergyPlus Weather (EPW) files. It employs two physical approaches: Neutral Logarithmic Wind Profile KNMI Two-Layer Approximation The workflow includes producing QA outputs in Excel and CSV formats, with an option to rewrite the EPW file. Originally developed under a University of Bath-funded project (attribution: Gunawardena et al., 2017; 2019), the current version (V3.0) integrates the KNMI wind downscaling method. This enhancement improves local wind speed accuracy by post-processing numerical weather prediction (NWP) outputs using a two-layer atmospheric boundary model, and high-resolution roughness maps derived from land-use data. This integration significantly refines surface wind speed estimates, especially in heterogeneous terrain. The package includes both Python and MATLAB versions. ... Read more

The anticipated rise in urban environmental thermal load, driven by climate warming and the heat island effect, has intensified heat-related risks for urban buildings, prompting a strong push since the early twenty-first century for green infrastructure solutions. Yet, the spatial limitations of densely built environments have led to the integration of vegetated architectural features, with a notable evolution from horizontal greening to the more recent emphasis on vertical greening strategies. In response to this shift, this paper introduces a thermography-based methodology for inspecting the canopies of vertical installations, enabling sustainable monitoring and maintenance practices. The effectiveness of this approach is demonstrated through a comprehensive analysis and quantification of canopy attributes in a case study featuring an indoor living wall. ... Read more

This method paper presents best practice guidance on qualitative and quantitative thermography application in built environment studies, with focus on the novel application of examining and monitoring vertical greening installations, an increasingly common solution implemented to enhance the climate resilience of urban buildings. Exemplar vertical greening studies have been presented here, with the qualitative application highlighting potential for identifying performance and maintenance issues, as well as providing prima facie indication of plant stress. Detailed aspects of plant performance assessment, as well as abiotic and biotic stress detection are however emphasised to require quantitative application using additional processing tools. The paper demonstrates that despite typical limitations concerning camera accuracy, usage errors, and interpretation cautions, the methodology to be an effective non-invasive approach pertinent not only for research purposes, but also long-term built environment management and maintenance applications. ... Read more

The warming climate is expected to increase environmental thermal loading on urban buildings. Green infrastructure enhancements have been widely supported as a means to address the resulting heat-related risks, with the challenge of realising enhancements in densely built cities necessitating the consideration of vegetated architectural features. Early efforts promoted horizontal greening, although in recent years ‘vertical greening’ has gained increased prominence. This paper examines the hypothesis that the wider implementation of the latter typology could serve to enhance urban climate resilience, and does so by applying an analysis pathway including the coupling of a novel one-dimensional vertical greening model (VGM) with an urban climate simulation framework to estimate the microclimate and energy-use implications of neighbourhood-scale vertical greening. The simulation results highlighted immediate thermal relief to canyon pedestrians, as well as net annual space-conditioning energy savings for the canyon buildings. These benefits, however, were modest, with a relatively pronounced influence offered for the urban neighbourhood than suburban, and with the living wall category than green facade application. Although the annual savings present potential for the wider implementation in temperate climates, the influence is insufficient to offer it as an exclusive solution, with any widescale application also requiring assessment against other ecosystem benefits and maintenance costs. ... Read more

Urban areas are experiencing excessive heating. Addressing the heat is a challenging but essential task where not only engineering and climatic knowledge matters but also a deep understanding of social and economic dimensions. We synthesize the state of the art in heat mitigation technologies and develop an ‘ITE index’ framework that evaluates the investment (I), time for implementation (T), and effectiveness (E) of candidate heat mitigation measures. Using this framework, we assess 247 multimeasure-centric solution sets composed of all possible combinations of 8 individual measures. The multidimensional ITE index is quantified for heat mitigation effectiveness based on different urban scales, investment levels, the impact of local climate zones (LCZs), and professionals' perceptions using the analytical hierarchy process. The top 50 unique solution sets consist of 4–7 individual measures across all LCZs, with the use of thermally efficient buildings and high-efficiency indoor cooling being the two recurrent measures contributing to the best solution sets. While every city varies in terms of its ideal solution sets, we provide a multimeasure-centric framework for decision-making in which different dimensions can be integrated, understood, and quantified. ... Read more

The thermal load on urban buildings is expected to increase owing to the adverse influence of a warming climate. As means to address such heat-related risks, green infrastructure enhancements have been widely supported in recent times, while the challenge of realising enhancements in densely built cities has demanded the consideration of vegetated architectural features. Although early efforts promoted horizontal greening, ‘vertical greening’ has gained increased prominence in recent times. This paper examines the hypothesis that this typology serves to enhance the climate resilience of urban built environments, and does so by presenting an analysis pathway including a novel one-dimensional model (VGM) coupled with the TRNSYS modelling framework to estimate the microclimate and energy use implications of their implementation. The pathway’s application at an indoor atrium study highlighted the installation to contribute to a net annual space-conditioning energy consumption saving when air-conditioning was simulated. ... Read more

This document describes the MATLAB workflow (updated to Python translation ThermogramExtractor_v1.1), for extracting vegetation canopy temperatures from FLIR thermograms. Radiometric images yield direct temperature fields when available, while non-radiometric images are converted via on-image colourbar decoding with optional Optical Character Recognition (OCR) of colourbar endpoints. Given the tool’s development to assess building surface greening canopies, the AUTO mode allows for vegetation to be segmented from a companion colour photograph using a robust cascade of RGB-derived methods [ExG, VARI], HSV gating, and 2-cluster RGB k-means, with coverage-based acceptance and morphology refinement, while via the MANUAL mode a binary-mask-based extraction allows for the extraction of any data segment of interest. Parameters are input from an Excel workbook to enable reproducible, site-specific refinement (e.g., shadow compensation, threshold offsets). This is a supplementary method statement to a study by Gunawardena (2021, 2024) that implemented v1.0 of this tool (2021), which has been updated here as v1.1 (Python implementations), March 2026, TU Delft. ... Read more

Green infrastructure enhancements are widely supported to address urban heat-related risks. The challenge of implementing enhancements in dense cities has necessitated the development of surface greening, with vertical living walls having gained increased prominence in recent years. This paper considered the performance of such in-situ applications to quantify the extents of their influence on the microclimates of two sheltered urban conditions. The results highlight the potency of hygrothermal modifications to be most apparent within the proximate zone, with other phenomena introducing mixing to disrupt influence distribution. Air movement data at the indoor study also highlights a dominant daytime downward flow that encourages the formation of a microscale centripetal thermal system. This flow lacks potency to cause discomfort, although has capacity to present thermal sensation and diversity to occupants. The findings therefore highlight the necessity for installation designers to take account of proximity influence, and in future designs increase building occupant access to their canopies. ... Read more

In response to the need to mitigate urban heat risks, green infrastructure enhancements have been widely advocated in recent times. To meet the challenges of implementing enhancements in dense cities, surface greening approaches such as vertical living walls have gained increased prominence. This paper reports on the principal challenges and drivers influencing the sustainable maintenance of such installations, identified through the inspection of ten European case studies and interviews with their management authorities. The study reports on key maintenance areas highlighted by installation managers as requiring attention. Furthermore, it reports on human engagement behavioural aspects as being a significant motivator, with installation managers assigning value to building occupant and public perception of an installation’s flourishing state. The evidence reported, therefore, is beneficial to key decision-makers and designers when considering the inclusion and sustainable maintenance of such greening installations. ... Read more

Green infrastructure enhancements are widely advocated to address heat-related risks in cities. The challenge of implementing enhancements in dense cities has necessitated the development of surface greening, with living walls having gained increased prominence in recent years. This paper considered such in-situ applications to quantify the extents of their influence on the microclimates of two sheltered urban conditions. The results highlight the potency of hygrothermal modifications to be most apparent within the immediate zone, while the disparity in influence between the two studies suggest that with increased shelter the hygrothermal influence is likely to be relatively weaker. Surface temperature monitoring results from the Indoor case study presented significant variation. While these were not potent enough to cause radiation asymmetry associated discomfort, thermal sensation and diversity to occupants is probable. These findings therefore highlight the necessity for designers to take account of this proximity influence, and in future designs to increase building occupant access to installations. ... Read more

A warming climate, increasing frequency and severity of extreme heat events, and the heat island effect are cumulatively expected to exacerbate climate thermal loading on urban buildings. This in turn could lead to increased summertime overheating risk, with any active means for addressing this likely to influence future energy consumption and CO2 emission patterns. This paper examines how the microclimatic loading presented by the heat island (UHI) effect influences summertime adaptive comfort in traditional urban residential buildings. The method for addressing this utilises the novel approach of coupling a computationally efficient urban climate model with an established building energy model to simulate a residential street canyon within the London heat island. Key findings highlighted adaptive capabilities to achieve summertime ‘comfort’ in most rooms without the need for energy intensive mechanical cooling. The alternative of using indiscriminate and widespread mechanical cooling within the canyon length is estimated to result in a 0.4 K increase in nocturnal canyon temperatures, and an additional 4.4% of CO2 released to the climate. In contrast, a targeted approach of cooling rooms where adaptive capacity is insufficient more than halves the canyon CO2 emission estimate; which in turn highlights the necessity for detailed overheating assessments in managing energy use in such traditional residential neighbourhoods within UHIs. ... Read more

The warming climate, projected increase in frequency and severity of extreme heat events, and the long-established heat island phenomenon are all expected to exacerbate urban environmental thermal loading. Active means used for addressing such risks are likely to increase energy consumption and emission trends to create a positive feedback loop that could threaten the health and wellbeing of urban citizens. In response, passive approaches such as green infrastructure enhancements are widely advocated, and to meet the challenges of implementing enhancements in dense cities, attention has been directed toward encouraging surface greening. This paper recognises this trend and considers vertical greening as a developing interest with application opportunity in both exterior and interior urban environments. A review of available studies and interviews with experts found most observations available to be derived from exterior applications. Interior applications consequently have yet to be investigated to determine relative value to indoor environments where most of human habitation is typically concentrated. The integration of plant science studies in this regard is highlighted as essential to develop a balanced evidence base for the enthusiasm observed for promoting indoor living wall installations. ... Read more

Environmental thermal loading on urban buildings is expected to increase owing to the combined influence of a warming climate, increasing frequency and severity of extreme heat events, and the urban heat island (UHI) effect. This paper presents how a computationally efficient estimation pathway could be utilised to understand UHI influence on building energy simulations. As an example, this is examined by considering UHI influence on the space-conditioning loads of office buildings within urban and suburban conditions, and how the trend of replacing heavyweight facades with lightweight alternatives could affect their surrounding microclimates, as well as building energy use. The paper addresses this through simulations of street canyons based on the urban Moorgate and suburban Wimbledon areas of London. Results show that with all scenarios including the UHI within a dynamic thermal simulation presents between 2.5 and 9.6% net increase in annual space-conditioning. The study also demonstrates that the trend in urban centres to replace heavyweight facades with lightweight insulated alternatives increases space-conditioning loads, which in turn increases UHI intensity to create a warming feedback loop. The study therefore stresses the significance of including microclimate loading from the UHI in estimating urban and suburban energy use, and the combined simulation approach is presented as a computationally efficient pathway for use by built environment designers. ... Read more

To address the call for developing passive climate resilience strategies, the project examines the influence and effectiveness of utilising vertical greening for reducing space-conditioning loads of urban buildings and surrounding microclimates. By examining this focus, the project aims to improve the design of urban built environments that would in turn lead to health and wellbeing enhancements of their growing populations. The purpose of this paper is to present preliminary findings from a monitoring campaign carried out at an indoor atrium case study in Cambridge, UK. Key parameters monitored included soil, surface, and air temperature; relative humidity; and surface air movement. Results obtained show relatively lower air temperature and higher relative humidity levels proximate to the living wall. Wintertime monitoring has also indicated a surface flow pattern that demonstrates the presence of a modest downdraught effect. Although these modifications are modest in magnitude, they could still offer significant localised thermal comfort benefit to building occupants, as well as potential for contributing to a reduced space-conditioning load. ... Read more

The environmental thermal loading on urban buildings is governed by its climate. It has long been recognised that cities exhibit distinct climates, and are typically warmer than surrounding rural areas to describe the influence of the urban heat island (UHI) effect. This distinctiveness must be accounted for when assessing urban energy interactions, with site-specific loading assessments requiring the procurement of data that defines the local microclimate, either from monitoring campaigns, or calculated from governing variables. This paper reviews the stateof- the-art of the latter simulation approaches. An abridged version of this review is also represented by Gunawardena (2021). ... Read more

There is wide consensus amongst climatologists that cities exhibit distinct climates and are typically warmer than their surrounding rural areas. This phenomenon, known as the urban heat island effect, results from unintentional alterations to urban surface properties. These modifications lead to increased absorption of solar radiation, reduced cooling due to slower wind speeds, and lower evapotranspiration rates. Its occurrence presents adverse consequences to the health and comfort of urban built environment occupants, while also increasing energy consumption ensuing from the measures employed to seek relief. These consequences are highlighted as likely to exacerbate further when combined with the existing trend of increasing temperatures from wider climate warming. Adverse heat-related impacts are thus on an upward trend and are gaining wider attention, with the imperative to develop and implement mitigation and adaptation strategies having already gained significant political determination and investment in recent years. Literature has been reviewed here from various knowledge domains, including public health, urban climatology, potamology, limnology, climate change science, and urban planning to provide a concise guide for architects and urban planners to consider when designing and implementing climate-resilient built environments. ... Read more