ENAC Seminar Series by Dr N. Meili
Event details
| Date | 15.09.2021 |
| Hour | 09:00 › 10:00 |
| Speaker | Dr Naika Meili |
| Location | Online |
| Category | Conferences - Seminars |
| Event Language | English |
09:00 – 10:00 – Dr Naika Meili
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, National University of Singapore
Vegetation effects on urban climate
Currently more than half of the world’s population is living in cities, which exhibit urban heat and dry islands. Such altered climatic conditions can decrease human health and well-being, increase energy demand for cooling, and impact urban ecology. Increasing urban vegetation cover is often proposed to mitigate excessive heat and low outdoor thermal comfort. Numerical urban climate models are one of the methods used to predict the effects of urban form, land cover, and design on urban climate. However, many of the early models did not or only include a simplistic representation of urban vegetation and lacked components of the hydrological budget. Hence, they were not well suited to investigate the effects of vegetation on urban climate and hydrology.
In this talk, I will first introduce a novel urban ecohydrological model, which is able to assess the combined climatic and hydrological effects of vegetation in cities as well as the feedback of the urban environment on plant performance. Subsequently, the effects of vegetation cover fraction, type, traits, and processes on climate variables, such as outdoor thermal comfort, temperature, and humidity are assessed with the use of numerical simulations. The results are synthesised to give recommendations for urban landscape planning and future research directions.
Short bio:
Naika Meili is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the National University of Singapore. Her research focuses on the quantification of the effects of urban climate mitigation strategies, such as blue-green infrastructure, on microclimate, energy consumption, and resource use with the aim to provide knowledge for sustainable urban planning.
Naika Meili did her PhD as part of the Ecosystem Services in Urban Landscapes group at the Futures Cities Laboratory, Singapore-ETH Centre in Singapore and the Chair of Hydrology and Water Resources Management, Institute of Environmental Engineering at ETH Zurich. During her PhD, she developed the novel urban ecohydrological model Urban Tethys-Chloris to quantify vegetation effects on urban climate and hydrology. She further collaborated in a project, which analysed various ecosystem services of urban landscape designs as part of a multi-disciplinary team, consisting of researchers in the field of ecology, architecture, remote sensing, and climate modelling. Naika Meili holds a master’s degree in Environmental Engineering from ETH Zurich.
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, National University of Singapore
Vegetation effects on urban climate
Currently more than half of the world’s population is living in cities, which exhibit urban heat and dry islands. Such altered climatic conditions can decrease human health and well-being, increase energy demand for cooling, and impact urban ecology. Increasing urban vegetation cover is often proposed to mitigate excessive heat and low outdoor thermal comfort. Numerical urban climate models are one of the methods used to predict the effects of urban form, land cover, and design on urban climate. However, many of the early models did not or only include a simplistic representation of urban vegetation and lacked components of the hydrological budget. Hence, they were not well suited to investigate the effects of vegetation on urban climate and hydrology.
In this talk, I will first introduce a novel urban ecohydrological model, which is able to assess the combined climatic and hydrological effects of vegetation in cities as well as the feedback of the urban environment on plant performance. Subsequently, the effects of vegetation cover fraction, type, traits, and processes on climate variables, such as outdoor thermal comfort, temperature, and humidity are assessed with the use of numerical simulations. The results are synthesised to give recommendations for urban landscape planning and future research directions.
Short bio:
Naika Meili is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the National University of Singapore. Her research focuses on the quantification of the effects of urban climate mitigation strategies, such as blue-green infrastructure, on microclimate, energy consumption, and resource use with the aim to provide knowledge for sustainable urban planning.
Naika Meili did her PhD as part of the Ecosystem Services in Urban Landscapes group at the Futures Cities Laboratory, Singapore-ETH Centre in Singapore and the Chair of Hydrology and Water Resources Management, Institute of Environmental Engineering at ETH Zurich. During her PhD, she developed the novel urban ecohydrological model Urban Tethys-Chloris to quantify vegetation effects on urban climate and hydrology. She further collaborated in a project, which analysed various ecosystem services of urban landscape designs as part of a multi-disciplinary team, consisting of researchers in the field of ecology, architecture, remote sensing, and climate modelling. Naika Meili holds a master’s degree in Environmental Engineering from ETH Zurich.
Practical information
- General public
- Invitation required
- This event is internal
Organizer
- ENAC
Contact
- Cristina Perez