Microclimate model for urban heat island simulation: a prediction tool extension to calculate the ambient temperature of building

Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM) is a public university located at Parit Raja, Batu Pahat, which is categorized as a suburban area of Johor, Malaysia and is still in development progress. However, the quick pace of development leads to changing of land use from green surface to hard surface building blocks which tends to increase the temperature level and reduce outdoor comfort level of occupants in UTHM. In addition, the available software simulations that used currently for temperature monitoring is mostly too complicated for educated non-scientist such as urban planners and architects. This research objectives are to predict the ambient building temperature of reference area by using Screening Tool for Estate Environment Evaluation software (STEVE) and to provide comparison for both of field measurements with STEVE results. In order to achieve these objectives, a total of six stations considering different urban morphologies are evaluated to give a better understanding on implication of urban heat island. The daily minimum (Tmin), average (Tavg) and maximum (Tmax) air temperature for six stations in UTHM have been developed and validated based on a long-term field measurement. The pavement (PAVE), building (BDG), green plot area ratio (GnPR), average height area (AvgHT), sky view factor (SVF), total wall area (WALL) and result of the temperature (Tmax, Tmin and Tavg) are automatically calculated by STEVE from the developed 3D models. The results show that the percentage different of temperature between STEVE and field measurement is in a range of 0.9-1.0% and this has strongly indicated that STEVE is suitable to be used as temperature prediction tool