CFD modelling of the aerodynamic effect of trees on urban air

pollution dispersion
J.H. Amorim, V. Rodrigues, R. Tavares, J. Valente, C. Borrego
CESAM & Department of Environment and Planning, University of Aveiro, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal
H I G H L I G H T S
The effect of roadside trees on air quality is assessed for 2 European urban areas.
The analysis is targeted towards the air quality impacts at the pedestrian level.
A vegetative canopy model was coupled to a high detail CFD model.
Modelling accuracy is increased by considering the aerodynamic effects of trees.
Urban air quality can be optimised based on knowledge-based planning of green spaces.
a b s t r a c t a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 4 December 2012
Received in revised form 24 April 2013
Accepted 13 May 2013
Available online 8 June 2013
Editor: Xuexi Tie
Keywords:
Street canyon
Urban trees
CO dispersion
CFD modelling
Trafc emissions
The current work evaluates the impact of urban trees over the dispersion of carbon monoxide (CO) emitted
by road trafc, due to the induced modication of the wind ow characteristics. With this purpose, the stan-
dard ow equations with a k closure for turbulence were extended with the capability to account for the
aerodynamic effect of trees over the wind eld. Two CFD models were used for testing this numerical ap-
proach. Air quality simulations were conducted for two periods of 31 h in selected areas of Lisbon and Aveiro,
in Portugal, for distinct relative wind directions: approximately 45 and nearly parallel to the main avenue,
respectively. The statistical evaluation of modelling performance and uncertainty revealed a signicant im-
provement of results with trees, as shown by the reduction of the NMSE from 0.14 to 0.10 in Lisbon, and
from 0.14 to 0.04 in Aveiro, which is independent from the CFD model applied. The consideration of the
plant canopy allowed to full the data quality objectives for ambient air quality modelling established by
the Directive 2008/50/EC, with an important decrease of the maximum deviation between site measure-
ments and CFD results. In the non-aligned wind situation an average 12% increase of the CO concentrations
in the domain was observed as a response to the aerodynamic action of trees over the vertical exchange
rates of polluted air with the above roof-level atmosphere; while for the aligned conguration an average
16% decrease was registered due to the enhanced ventilation of the street canyon. These results show that
urban air quality can be optimised based on knowledge-based planning of green spaces.
2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Biosphereatmosphere interactions, and in particular the behaviour
of ows over and through plant canopies, have been subject of research
at different spatial scales and in numerous elds such as hydrology, ecol-
ogy, climate and various engineering branches (Katul et al., 2004). In
what relates to the impact of trees on urban environments the analysis
has been performed at different levels. While some studies have been fo-
cused on the air pollutant removal capacity of trees by deposition and
ltration mechanisms (Nowak et al., 2006; Tallis et al., 2011), others
analysed the opposite effect in which trees are the reason for higher pol-
lution levels due to different reasons (Gromke and Ruck, 2007; Ribeiro et
al., 2009). The comprehensive review on this topic by Litschke and
Kuttler (2008) showed that accurate measurements of deposition veloc-
ities of urban vegetation are still needed if the objective is to estimate the
improvement on air quality as a result of the ltration by plants of road
trafc particle emissions. Numerical models (e.g., the UFORE model
fromNowak and Crane (1998)) have beenapplied to assess the potential
removal of air pollutants induced by urban green spaces for current con-
ditions andfuture scenarios (Nowak et al., 2006; Tallis et al., 2011). Onthe
other hand, urban green canopies are also responsible for the emission of
airborne pollen antigenic particles (Pehkonen and Rantio-Lehtimaki,
1994; Ribeiro et al., 2009) and biogenic volatile organic compounds
Science of the Total Environment 461462 (2013) 541551
Corresponding author. Tel.: +351 234 370 200; fax: +351 234 370 309.
E-mail addresses: amorim@ua.pt (J.H. Amorim), vera.moreira.rodrigues@gmail.com
(V. Rodrigues), richard.tavares@ua.pt (R. Tavares), joanavalente@ua.pt (J. Valente),
cborrego@ua.pt (C. Borrego).
0048-9697/$ see front matter 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2013.05.031
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
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j our nal homepage: www. el sevi er . com/ l ocat e/ sci t ot env
(Benjaminet al., 1996; Owenet al., 2003), the latter being relatedwiththe
ozone-forming potential of vegetation (Benjamin and Winer, 1998). The
extent to which road trafc is capable of inuencing the air quality
of neighbouring urban green areas has been addressed (Kuttler and
Strassburger, 1999; Upmanis et al., 2001), as also the consequent bi-
ological response of roadside trees (Li et al., 2010). For further reading
see the review by Tiwary and Colls (2010) on the role of vegetation in
the mitigation of air pollution.
In the basis of the current understanding of the turbulent ow
within and around vegetation canopies, there is an extensive number
of outdoor measurements on natural canopies and wind tunnel experi-
ments using articial models. Wind tunnel measurements on articial
canopies have played an important role for decades in the study of with-
in canopy turbulence structure (see the reviews of Finnigan, 2000;
Raupach and Thom, 1981). From the rst model forests, applying wood
pegs and plastic strips (Plate and Quraishi, 1965), to the recent extensive
database on idealised street canyon urban trees with varying permeabil-
ity (Gromke and Ruck, 2007, 2009), much has been understood about
the aerodynamic effects of trees on ground level pollutant concentra-
tions inurban-like geometries. Fieldcampaigns have beencarried out re-
cently inurbanstreets withthe aimof investigating the effects of trees on
owpatterns, turbulent diffusionof airborne pollutants andtemperature
distribution (see Kikuchi et al., 2007).
On the computational eld, several vegetation canopy models have
been proposed and evaluated, which simulate the aerodynamic effects
of trees (Green, 1992; Liu et al., 1996; Hiraoka and Ohashi, 2008;
Mochida et al., 2008). These numerical formulations have been
implemented into Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) models and ap-
plied to urban-like geometries to improve our understanding of the role
of vegetation on wind ow patterns and air pollutant concentrations
(see Balcz et al., 2009; Bruse and Fleer, 1998; Buccolieri et al., 2009;
Gromke et al., 2008; Liang et al., 2006; Mochida et al., 2008; Ries and
Eichhorn, 2001; Robitu et al., 2006). Most of these applications rely on
k turbulence models, except for Buccolieri et al. (2009) in whichturbu-
lence closure is obtained with a Reynolds stress model. These two tech-
niques were evaluated by Gromke et al. (2008) through the comparison
with wind-tunnel data.
Although the effects of plant canopies on atmospheric turbulence
have been widely studied, a scientically-based knowledge of the over-
all impact of trees on urban environments is still required, particularly
in terms of the outcomes on air quality. Because the majority of numer-
ical and experimental studies have been performed using idealised con-
gurations and hypothetical scenarios, an open question still stands on
the overall understanding of the extent of the perturbations induced by
trees on air pollutants dispersion in real urban environments. In this
scope, the current research is focused on (i) the numerical modelling
of the aerodynamic effects induced on local wind and turbulence elds
by the mechanical drag of trees, and (ii) the related impacts on the dis-
persion of trafc-emitted air pollutants for typical European street can-
yon congurations. In the core of the work is the development of the
URban VEgetation (URVE) module, which allows the simulation to
account for the aerodynamic effects of trees over the 3D wind eld.
This module was coupled to two distinct CFD models and applied in
the simulation of the spatial distribution of carbon monoxide (CO)
concentration in two Portuguese city centres.
In conclusion, this study aims to contribute to a better under-
standing of the ow and dispersion of gaseous pollutants in urban
environments when accounting for the aerodynamic effects of
trees.
2. Urban vegetative canopy model development
The main concept behind the simulation of the aerodynamic effect
of urban vegetation is the extension of the standard mean ow and
turbulence equations with additional source terms for momentum,
turbulent kinetic energy (k) and its dissipation () that mathematically
represent the aerodynamics behind the interaction of leaves and
branches with the 3D wind ow. Consequently, the dispersion of the
emitted air pollutants is conditioned by vegetation through this dis-
turbed wind ow. The magnitude of this perturbation depends most
of all on the characteristics of the vegetation itself (e.g., size, porosity,
location) and of the incoming air ow (e.g., velocity, direction,
turbulence).
The extension of ow equations is made through the developed
numerical module URVE, which is coupled to a specic solver that
provides the numerical solution for the mean ow and turbulence, as
described in Section 2.2.
2.1. Numerical formulation
URVE code was designed to be coupled with a CFD model, based
on the application of the Reynolds-averaged NavierStokes (RANS)
equations. Simplications can be made in the general form of the
equations that describe the 3D ow through the conservation of mass,
momentum and energy, namely by the consideration of a steady-state
ow of a Newtonian, isotropic and incompressible uid, in an inertial
(non-accelerating) reference frame and neglecting the Coriolis force.
Also, the Boussinesq approximation is applied removing the air density
from the calculation. The objective of this study was to capture the dy-
namic turbulence induced by trees and, therefore, neutrally buoyant
conditions were assumed.
Given the assumptions considered, the mass conservation equa-
tion is expressed, using Einstein's summation notation (i and j are in-
dices with values of 1, 2 and 3), as following:
u
i
x
i
0 1
where u
i
is the velocity and x
i
is the spatial coordinate.
The loss of wind speed due to pressure and viscous drag forces
exerted by the leaves and branches can be expressed through a mo-
mentum sink term (F
d
) that is added to the momentum conservation
equation, which is described by:
u
j
u
i
x
j

1

P
x
i

x
j

e
u
i
x
j
!
F
d
2
where P is the pressure, the air density,
e
the effective viscosity, in
which the turbulent (or eddy) viscosity,
t
, is computed by combining
k and as follows:

e

t
c

k
2

: 3
The turbulence closure is achieved through the calculation of k and
that will be given in Eqs. (6) and (7). The value of c

is also shown in
Table 1. F
d
is calculated according to the conventional parameterisation
of the plantairow interaction expressed by Eq. (4), which neglects
viscous drag relative to form (or pressure) drag (Green, 1992; Katul et
al., 2004; Li et al., 1990; Wilson, 1988).
F
d
c
d
a

U j j

u
i
4
where c
d
is the mechanical drag coefcient, and a stands for the leaf area
density (LAD), which is dened as the total one-sided leaf area of
Table 1
Closure constants for the k- model and URVE module.
c

c
d
c
1
c
2
c
4
c
5

p

d
0.09 1 1.3 0.2 1.44 1.92 1.5 1.5 1 4
542 J.H. Amorim et al. / Science of the Total Environment 461462 (2013) 541551
photosynthetic tissue per unit of canopy volume (Weiss et al., 2004).
The magnitude of the wind speed vector, U, is calculated as follows:
U j j
3
i1
u
2
i
1
=
2
: 5
The turbulence closure is obtained through the application of the
k model (Launder and Spalding, 1974), which has been the most
widely used turbulence model in wind engineering and near-eld dis-
persion problems (Hargreaves and Wright, 2007) and has also been test-
edinother vegetationcanopy models (Mochida et al., 2008), as reviewed
in Section 1. The k turbulence model solves two additional transport
equations, for k and . The values for the empirical constants of the k
model, presented in Table 1 are the ones originally dened by Launder
and Spalding (1974).
The budget equations for k and are given by Eqs. (6) and (7), re-
spectively. Similar to the budget equation for momentum, the turbulent
interaction between the airow and the plant canopy is addressed by
including the additional source terms S
k
and S

in the transport equa-

tions of k and , respectively (Green, 1992; Wilson, 1988).
u
j
k
x
j

x
i

k
k
x
i

t
u
i
x
j

u
j
x
i
!
u
i
x
j
S
k
: 6
u
j

x
j

x
i

x
i

c
1

t
u
i
x
j

u
j
x
i
!
u
i
x
j
c
2

2
k
S

: 7
The values for the closure constants c
1
and c
2
, and the Prandtl
numbers for k and ,
k
and

, are also shown in Table 1. The source

term S
k
is given by (Green, 1992; Wilson, 1988):
S
k
c
d
a
p
U j j
3

d
U j jk

: 8
The values of
p
and
d
are shown in Table 1. S
k
reects the gener-
ation of turbulence by the action of vegetation elements, and thereby

p
represents the fraction of the mean ow kinetic energy converted
to wake-generated k by canopy drag. The second termin (8), on the con-
trary, expresses the rapid dissipation of the generated wakes (Raupach
and Shaw, 1982), and consequently
d
is the fraction of k dissipated by
short-circuiting of the Kolmogorov cascade (Kaimal and Finnigan,
1994; Poggi et al., 2004). In this sense, S
k
is a sum of the source and sink
of k due to the effect of the vegetative canopy.
The source term of , S

, which is similar to the formulation of S

k
, is
given by (Green, 1992):
S

c
d
a c
4

p
U j j
3

k
c
5

d
U j j

: 9
The values for the constants representing the vegetative canopy
elements are case specic and thus will be presented and discussed
in Section 3.2.2.3.
2.2. Module coupling
In order to obtain a solution for the 3D wind ow in the study do-
main, the URVE module needs to be coupled to a CFD solver. Two dis-
tinct CFD codes were used (both coupled and uncoupled with URVE)
to evaluate the performance of this module under distinct conditions
(e.g. weather) and urban congurations. Table 2 shows the main fea-
tures of both models.
The rst model is the multi-purpose commercial software
FLUENT (Inc, 2003), version 6.1.18 for UNIX platforms, which has
been applied in the simulation of ow and dispersion of uids and
particles within conned and open complex geometries in different
scientic and technical domains. Its adequacy and feasibility to
urban air quality modelling was previously assessed (Borrego et al.,
2003; Martins et al., 2009).
The other model is VADIS (Borrego et al., 2003), a t-to-purpose
model specically developed for the air quality simulation at microscale,
which has been previously applied to European urban areas (Borrego et
al., 2003; Borrego et al., 2004; Tchepel et al., 2010), as also in the
intercomparison against experiments and other models (Sabatino et al.,
2011).
In both models, the 3Dwind owwas simulated by applying a RANS
prognostic model with a standard k turbulence closure. For the COdis-
persion modelling, FLUENT applies an Eulerian approach while VADIS
uses a Lagrangian one. Due to the limited time and space scales of the
analysis CO was considered as a non-reactive chemical species in both
approaches, as in previous modelling investigations (Crowther and
Hassan, 2002).
Fig. 1 schematically represents the methodological approach for
the numerical simulation of the aerodynamic effect of vegetation on
wind ow patterns and CO dispersion.
Because these two CFD codes run in different programming lan-
guages, URVE was written in C and in Fortran 90, respectively for the
coupling with FLUENT and VADIS.
3. Model application
The main goal of this work was to evaluate the interaction between
trees and the dispersionof roadtrafc-emittedCOina real 3Durbanen-
vironment with typical meteorological conditions. Two study domains
were dened in two Portuguese urban centres: the rst in the country's
capital Lisbon, and the second in the medium-size town of Aveiro. The
main criteria for the selection of the computational domains were the
following: (i) the presence of a large number of densely foliaged tall
trees anking the main avenue, (ii) a signicant road trafc ux, and
(iii) the existence of an air quality station (AQS) inside the study area.
Air quality simulations were conducted for the two city-cases for a
period of 31 h each, according to the averaging period for the calcula-
tionof the daily eight hour meanCOconcentrationdened by the Direc-
tive 2008/50/EC. Based on the prevailing meteorological conditions and
the availability of trafc counting, Lisbon simulations comprise the pe-
riod between 5 p.m. on March 5th and 12 p.m. on March 6th of 2002,
while Aveiro simulations are from 5 p.m. on May 4th to 12 p.m. on
May 5th 2004.
3.1. Case study description
3.1.1. Study areas
The two dened computational domains consist of residential, com-
mercial and recreational areas. They both comprise important trafc
thoroughfares and are characterised by the presence of a complex
array of buildings and irregular streets (see Fig. 2).
Table 2
Main characteristics of FLUENT and VADIS models.
FLUENT VADIS
General characteristics
Multi-purpose commercial CFD model
(v. 6.1.18 for UNIX platforms)
Microscale air quality CFD model
developed at the University of Aveiro
Flow modelling
Unstructured meshing scheme Structured meshing scheme
Eulerian approach
Steady-state ow (1h averaged input/output values)
RANS equations
Turbulence closure: k- model
Dispersion modelling
Eulerian approach Lagrangian approach
No chemical reactions
543 J.H. Amorim et al. / Science of the Total Environment 461462 (2013) 541551
A brief description of the study area is given in Table 3. The different
characteristics of the canyon geometries in the two urban areas induce
distinct ow behaviours. In Lisbon the aspect ratio (representing the
rate between the height H of the canyon and its width W) indicates a
wide canyon where the buildings on both sides of the emission source
are well spaced. In Aveiro, on the other hand, the buildings are more
closely spaced. Both can be classied as symmetric canyons, i.e. the
buildings anking the street have the same average height. As expected,
in the narrow street canyon of the Aveiro study case the fraction of the
cross-sectional area occupied by trees is higher than in the wider can-
yon of Lisbon.
As can be seen in Fig. 2 and, in more detail, in Fig. 3, one of the most
relevant characteristics of the study area is the presence of a large num-
ber of densely foliaged tall trees that ank the emission sources along
their entire extension. Moreover, both AQS are located under the direct
inuence of this dense canopy. Also, the probes are at approximately 2
to 3 m from the leaves in the inferior boundary of the tree crowns.
The tree species in Lisbon are Platanus hybrida and Celtis australis,
while in Aveiro they are Acer pseudoplatanus and Quercus robur. Their
dimensions will be listed in Table 5.
3.1.2. Meteorological conditions
The wind velocity and direction values shown in Fig. 4 were ac-
quired at 10 m high meteorological masts located nearby the compu-
tational domains. These data describe the mean wind ow conditions
that will be used as inow boundary conditions for the simulations
(see Section 3.2.2.1). It can be observed from the Lisbon city case
that the wind direction was approximately constant from Northeast,
indicating that there is a 45 deviation between the incoming ow
and the mainstreet canyon. Signicant oscillations in the windintensity
CFD model (FLUENT or VADIS)
+
URVE module
M
O
D
E
L
S
I
N
P
U
T
O
U
T
P
U
T
V
A
L
I
D
A
T
I
O
N
meteorology 3D mapping traffic emissions
3D wind field 3D concentration field
meteorological station
in the domain
air quality station
in the domain
wind velocity and
direction measured at a
nearby meteo. station
3D coordinates of urban
elements from satellite
imagery and local obs.
estimated by the Transport
Emission Model for Line
Sources TREM
Fig. 1. Schematic representation of the methodological approach.
Fig. 2. Satellite images of the Lisbon (a) and Aveiro (b) study areas (at the time of measurements). The boundaries of the computational domains are shown by the white rectangle
and the location of the AQS is indicated by the white triangle.
544 J.H. Amorim et al. / Science of the Total Environment 461462 (2013) 541551
were observed during the study period, with a maximum variation
between 4 and 7 ms
1
. In Aveiro, the wind velocity varied between
5 and 10 ms
1
, while the wind direction was approximately from
Northwest during the entire period.
The periods selected correspond to neutral stability conditions, in
agreement with the numerical approach adopted in this study.
3.1.3. Road trafc
The main road in the selected Lisbon domain is the Liberdade Av.,
which is constituted by ve central lanes and by two secondary lanes
separated from the main avenue with sidewalks. Ten other streets
were also considered, among which two also have signicant trafc
ux rates. In the Aveiro domain, the main emission source is the 25 de
Abril Av., with a total of four trafc lanes. Another two avenues and
seven streets were also considered. There is also a road tunnel under
one of the avenues, with natural ventilation of trafc emissions by 15
shafts (for the road segment length considered).
Vehicle uxes data were acquired using automatic devices in Lisbon
and manual counting in Aveiro. For the roads in which no data was
available, empirical rates expressing the relation with the trafc in the
surrounding roads were applied.
3.1.4. Air quality
Historical data of CO concentrations were sourced fromtwo urban
trafc air quality monitoring stations of the national Portuguese net-
work (APA, 2011). Additional information is given in Table 4.
For the Lisbonstudy case, the maximum8-haverage COconcentration
was 1063 gm
3
, corresponding to the period from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m.,
which is considerably inferior to the CO limit-value of 10,000 gm
3
.
For the Aveiro study case, the maximum value for the 8-h periods was
493.9 gm
3
, from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., which is also signicantly lower
than the limit-value. Hourly CO concentrations measured in the AQS
will be presented in Fig. 7 in comparison with the simulated values.
3.2. Modelling setup
The numerical simulations were conducted following the best
practice guidelines proposed by COST Action 732 (Franke et al., 2007).
Simulations were performed in an hourly temporal frame assuming
steady-state conditions. Hourly averaged wind velocity and CO emis-
sions were used as input for the calculations.
In order to evaluate the effects induced by the vegetative
canopy, simulations were performed for baseline conditions (URVE
module activated), and for a scenario without trees (URVE module
deactivated).
Table 3
General description of the study areas (L
d
and W
d
represent, respectively, the length
and width of the built-up area considered in the computational domain, while H and
W stand for the height and width of the buildings in the street canyon).
Study
case
L
d
W
d
(m m)
Average H/W
ratio
Sectional area occupied
by trees (%)
Lisbon 550 530 0.33 5.4
Aveiro 395 240 0.75 27.3
Fig. 3. Photographs of the Liberdade Avenue in Lisbon (a) and the 25 de Abril Avenue in Aveiro (b), both anked by rows of dense trees.
Time (h)
16 20 0 4 8 12 16 20 0
W
i
n
d

d
i
r
e
c
t
i
o
n
S
W
N
E
S
Day
5/3/2002 6/3/2002 6/3/2002 6-3-2002 6-3-2002 6-3-2002
W
i
n
d

V
e
l
o
c
i
t
y

(
m
.
s
-
1
)
4
6
8
10
Wind direction
Wind velocity
Time (h)
16 20 0 4 8 12 16 20 0
Day
4/5/2004 5/5/2004 5/5/2004 5/5/2004 5/5/2004 5/5/2004
Wind direction
Wind velocity
a
b
Fig. 4. Time evolution of mean hourly values of wind velocity (ms
1
) and direction at
the inlet boundaries in Lisbon (a) and Aveiro (b).
545 J.H. Amorim et al. / Science of the Total Environment 461462 (2013) 541551
3.2.1. Computational domain and grid
Following the recommendations fromCOST Action 732 (Franke et al.,
2007) for the simulation of urban ows with multiple buildings, the
vertical, lateral and downwind extensions of the computational domain
were dened with a minimum of 5H
max
, where H
max
represents the
height of the tallest building.
The complexity of the city objects (buildings and trees) present in
both domains was reduced by assembling adjacent individual volumes
with similar characteristics. Specically in the case of trees, the grouped
elements were dened as parallelepipeds positioned at a given distance
above ground, representing the average trunk height. Fig. 5 shows the
resulting virtual buildings and trees created.
The generation of the city objects (porous and non-porous) and the
meshing of the computational domain followed different procedures
according to the CFD model. In VADIS an internal pre-processor created
the obstacles based on the coordinates given by the user. The model
used a structured meshing scheme for the spatial discretisation of the
computational domain. In FLUENT the CAD software Gambit (version
2.0.4) was used to build the objects and create an unstructured compu-
tational grid (TGrid meshing tool), with variable cell sizes and shapes,
that adjusts to more complex geometries. See Table 5 for more details.
3.2.2. Initial and boundary conditions
3.2.2.1. Inlet and outlet boundaries. Inow boundary conditions for the
horizontal wind velocity components, u and v, were prescribed based
on the meteorological data presented in Section 3.1.2. Richards and
Hoxey's (1993) vertical prole equations were used to specify the
variation of velocity (U), k and with height at the inlet boundaries
assuming neutral stability conditions:
U
u

k
v
ln
z z
0
z
0

; k
u
2

p ;
u
3

k
v
z z
0

10
where u
*
is the friction velocity, extracted from the logarithmic prole
of Eq. (10) with the wind velocity measured at the reference height of
10 m, k
v
is von Karman's constant (0.41) and z
0
is the surface roughness
Table 4
Characterisation of the AQS located in the study domains.
AQS
location
Geographical
coordinates
Height above
sea level (m)
Distance from
nearest road
(m)
Distance from
nearest building
(m)
Liberdade av.
(Lisbon)
384316N
90846W
44 11.5 24.5
25 de Abril av.
(Aveiro)
403814N
83853W
20 6 18
Fig. 5. Computational domain generated by the models for the set of buildings (in dark grey) and trees (in light grey) in Lisbon (a) and Aveiro (b).
546 J.H. Amorim et al. / Science of the Total Environment 461462 (2013) 541551
length, dened as 1.1 m, a typical average value for a urban area with
medium height and density (Grimmond and Oke, 1999).
3.2.2.2. Upper, lower and wall boundaries. In order to prevent a horizon-
tal change fromthe inowproles along the domain, the values for the
velocities and the turbulence quantities given by the inow prole for
the top of the computational domains were prescribed over the entire
top boundary, as suggested by Blocken et al. (2007) and Franke et al.
(2007).
At groundand building surfaces a no-slipconditionwas imposed. The
standard wall functions proposed by Launder and Spalding (1974) were
used. In the near-wall region the logarithmic law-of-the-wall for the
mean velocity was applied, while the production of k, and its dissipation
rate, , at the wall-adjacent were computed on the basis of the local equi-
librium hypothesis. Wall roughness effects were modelled applying the
law-of-the-wall modied for roughness. The roughness height parame-
ter, K
s
, was speciedas 0.05 m, and the roughness constant, C
s
, as 0.5 m.
At walls, a zero-gradient boundary condition was applied for CO.
3.2.2.3. Tree boundary conditions. The assembled tree volumes were de-
ned in the models as uid zones, in whichall transport equations were
solved. The source of momentumand turbulence was dened in URVE.
The different parameters used in the denition of trees in Eqs. (4),
(8) and (9) were dened in Table 1. The values for c
4
and c
5
were
the ones originally dened by Green (1992). For the mechanical drag
coefcient, c
d
, which typically ranges between 0.1 and 0.3 for most veg-
etation, an average value of 0.2 was selected (Bruse and Fleer, 1998;
Katul et al., 2004; Liang et al., 2006).
The spatial distribution of LAD (in this work given by a) is a key
parameter in describing the forest canopy characteristics (Lalic and
Mihailovic, 2004), but due to the difculty and complexity inherent
to the measurement of the vertical distribution of forest canopy ele-
ments (see Law et al., 2001; Meir et al., 2000; Wang et al., 1992), espe-
cially in a full scale analysis, fewdata are available, especially for trees in
European urban areas. Moreover, LAD values vary with respect to spe-
cies, site fertility, time of day and year, weather conditions and even
within stands (Brda, 2003). However, it can be extracted from the
analysis of Lalic and Mihailovic's (2004) work, that the average LAD in-
side the crown of a large size tree is approximately 1 m
2
m
3
, with no
signicant variation with height. Consequently, the following simple
vertical prole was assumed for the type of vegetationexisting inLisbon
and Aveiro:
a
0 0hbh
c
1 h
c
hh
t

11
where h is the height above ground, h
c
is the lower average height of the
crown, and h
t
is the maximum average height of the tree.
3.2.2.4. CO source/sink. The roads dened in the computation were the
ones described in Section 3.1.3. All these emission sources were created
as uid zones, in this case with a mass source allocated. A numerical ap-
proach to the trafc produced turbulence was not considered; instead,
the referred uid volumes were dened with a height of 3 m, and the
mass source was homogeneously distributed by the total number of
cells contained in these uid zones, inducing a forced mixture of CO
with the ambient air. Ventilation shafts were also considered for the
Aveiro simulation. In this case, the emission of each individual shaft is as-
sumed to correspond to 1/15 the total emission in that segment length of
the road tunnel.
Hourly averaged COowrates were prescribed for each road apply-
ing the Transport Emission Model for Line Sources (TREM), based onve-
hicles counting data (described in Section 3.1.3), and according to the
model cascade methodology validated by Borrego et al. (2003). TREM
is based on the MEET/COST methodology. Emission factors are derived
from the average speed (approximately 50 kmh
1
in the considered
roads), which is an approach with good results when the inuence of
driving dynamics can be neglected (Sturm et al., 1998). The emission
(E
CO
) is estimated for each road segment as follows:
E
CO

i
e
CO;i
v N
i

L 12
where e
CO
,
i
(v) is the emission factor for CO and vehicle class i as a func-
tion of average speed v; N
i
is the number of vehicles of class i; and L is
the road segment length. For the selection of appropriate emission fac-
tors, e
CO
,
i
(v) values were dened based on the aggregation of vehicles in
the following categories: passenger cars (gasoline and diesel), light
duty vehicles, heavy duty vehicles and urban busses. For each vehicle
category, different classes were considered that distinguish engine age,
type, and capacity, vehicle weight, fuel type (gasoline, diesel, LPG), and
emission reduction technology (emission standards implementation as-
sociated to vehicle age).
The CO removal by deposition processes occurring in the canopy
was neglected, based on the fact that the capacity of urban trees to l-
trate CO is in the range from only 0.001 to 0.002% of its concentration
in ambient air (Nowak et al., 2006).
4. Modelling results analysis
The analysis of the CO emission values presented in Fig. 6 shows
the typical behaviour of downtown's trafc ow, with two distinct
peaks in the early morning and afternoon. In the Liberdade Av., Lisbon,
trafc emissions varied between a minimum of 2.2 kgkm
1
h
1
at
4 a.m., corresponding to a total of 500 vehiclesh
1
, and a maximum
of 24.5 kgkm
1
h
1
at 6 p.m., for a total of 5600 vehiclesh
1
.
Emissions start to increase at 6 a.m. and are kept high until 6 p.m.
when they decrease, which is a typical behaviour of the trafc ow
for a large city downtown. In Aveiro the minimum emission was
0.09 kgkm
1
h
1
for 14 vehiclesh
1
at 4 a.m., and the maximum
was 4.7 kgkm
1
h
1
for 1038 vehiclesh
1
at 7 p.m
In Fig. 7, the temporal variation of the mean hourly values of
measured/modelled CO concentrations is presented for both study
cases. The data comparison reveals a good agreement between mea-
sured and simulatedconcentrations over the entire period in bothcities.
Although in some periods there is an overestimating tendency when
URVE is used, in particular for Lisbon, there is a general increase of
modelling performance with the coupling of the vegetation effect.
The existence of a meteorological station located inside the Aveiro
domain allowed the evaluation of wind velocity simulations for this
Table 5
General description of the computational domains (L
d
and W
d
represent, respectively, the total length and width of the domain, including the open belt around the built-up area.
Symbol # indicates number).
Study case Domain area Mesh Buildings Trees Roads
L
d
W
d
(m m) Type Resolution (m
3
) #
Cells
#
Sets
Height range (m) # Sets Min. crown height (m), Max. height (m) # Width range (m)
Lisbon 700 650 Unstruc. 0.081000 560,000 42 1240 6 5 15 13 425
Aveiro 800 800 Regular 1000 38,400 40 315 29 5 10 12 420
547 J.H. Amorim et al. / Science of the Total Environment 461462 (2013) 541551
study case. Results are shown in Fig. 8. As can be seen there is a very
signicant increase of the modelling performance with URVE.
The performance and accuracy of the model were evaluated by ap-
plying the BOOT software and the model acceptance criteria dened
by Chang and Hanna (2005) for air quality models assessment. The
following parameters were calculated: average bias (d), normalised
mean squared error (NMSE), Pearson correlation coefcient (r), and
factor of two (FAC2). Results are shown in Table 6.
In all the cases, the statistical analysis indicated a better modelling
performance when the vegetative canopy was considered. The NMSE
was reduced from 0.14 to 0.10 in the Lisbon case study, and from 0.14
to 0.04 in Aveiro. Nevertheless, the NMSE for all the simulations was
signicantly lower than the maximumof 1.5 dened by the acceptance
criteria of Chang and Hanna (2005). The r parameter also increases
with the URVE module indicating a better correlation between
modelled and measured data. The negative value of d indicates some
overestimation when the effect of vegetation is considered. However,
the underestimating tendency exhibited by the model without the cou-
pling with URVE is more pronounced.
Modelling uncertainty was assessed through the data quality objec-
tives established by the Directive 2008/50/EC. According to the results
obtained (also shown in Table 6), the maximum deviation of 50% was
surpassed when using the original versions of both FLUENT (59.70%)
and VADIS (59.72%). This parameter decreased to 43.65% and 18.89%,
respectively, withthe consideration of the plant canopy, allowing to ful-
l the requirements established by the legislation.
Another conclusion that can be taken from Fig. 7 is that, in the
great majority of the hourly simulations, the effects induced by the
plant canopy on the wind ow lead to an increase of CO concentrations
at the location of both AQS. The magnitude of this effect is mostly depen-
dent on the orientation of the incoming wind in relation to the position-
ing of the emission sources and buildings. According to the simulation
results there is an average increase on concentrations at the AQS of 35%
in Lisbon, while in Aveiro the values are, in average, 175% higher with
URVE. It can be observed from Figs. 9 and 10 that the effect of trees on
air quality is extremely spatially dependent, mostly because the hetero-
geneous positioning of trees induces complex wind ow patterns. It can
be inferred that, in fact, the Aveiro AQS is not representative of the overall
impact of trees on dispersion conditions in the studied area for the simu-
lated meteorological conditions. It was concluded that in Lisbon, where
the wind direction is not aligned with the street canyon, the average con-
centrationinthe domainis 12%higher because of the aerodynamic action
of trees, while in Aveiro, where there is an approximate alignment, it is
16% lower.
Fig. 9 shows the CO concentration eld in Lisbon (for more detail,
only a selected area is shown). As a result of the conjoint inuence of
the 3D conguration of trees and buildings over the wind ow an in-
crease of concentrations is observed along the Liberdade Av., in partic-
ular in the leeward side (buildings on the right side of the image) of
the street canyon.
This behaviour is originated by the oblique roof-level incoming
winds that induce a counter-clockwise swirling ow along the canyon.
As a result, this vortical airow transports the pollutant emitted near
the ground level by trafc towards the leeward side of the street canyon
(through the open space under the trees crowns), where the CO is
trapped by the decreased vertical exchange rate of air with the above
roof-level atmosphere.
Fig. 6. Time evolution of mean hourly values of CO emission (kgkm
1
h
1
) estimated
by TREM for Lisbon (a) and Aveiro (b).
Time (h)
16 20 0 4 8 12 16 20 0
C
O

C
o
n
c
e
n
t
r
a
t
i
o
n

(

g
.
m
-
3
)
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
1400
1600
1800
Measured (AQS)
FLUENT+URVE
FLUENT
Time (h)
16 20 0 4 8 12 16 20 0
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
Measured (AQS)
VADIS+URVE
VADIS
a
b
Fig. 7. Time evolution of the mean hourly values of CO concentration (gm
3
) mea-
sured in the AQS and simulated for the same locations with and without the inclusion
of URVE, in Lisbon (a) and Aveiro (b).
Time (h)
0 4 8 12 16 20 0
W
i
n
d

v
e
l
o
c
i
t
y

(
m
.
s
-
1
)
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
Meteo. station VADIS+URVE VADIS
Fig. 8. Time evolution of the mean hourly values of wind velocity (ms
1
) measured in
the meteorological station and simulated for the same location with and without the
inclusion of URVE.
548 J.H. Amorim et al. / Science of the Total Environment 461462 (2013) 541551
On the contrary, the alignment of trees with the incoming wind in
the Aveiro study case was shown to enhance ventilation, promoting
COdispersion inside the avenue and adjacent buildings, which is evident
in the comparative analysis of the concentration contours in Fig. 10. It
can also be seen that despite the general improvement of air quality, in
specic areas as the AQS location, trees lead to the formation of addition-
al hot-spots due to the rearrangement of vortical ow structures.
Therefore, the increase of concentrations at the AQS (Fig. 7) in
Aveiro is a consequence of (i) air recirculation induced by the
building's walls and trees, and (ii) the signicant decrease of wind ve-
locity at this spot (as already identied in Fig. 8), leading to the for-
mation of a hot-spot in this particular zone.
5. Conclusions
In both cases, the coupling of the developed vegetative canopy
module URVE with two CFDtools increased the accuracy of simulations
compared to the original codes. The Directive 2008/50/EC establishes
for ambient air quality assessment a maximum modelling uncertainty
of 50%. This threshold was surpassed by 10% in both cities when not
considering the effect of trees. However, the uncertainty decreased to
44% and 19%, respectively for Lisbon and Aveiro, with the consideration
of the plant canopy implemented in URVE. A consistent increase of
modelling performance was obtained also in the analysis of the NMSE,
which was reduced by 29% (from 0.14 to 0.10) in Lisbon, and by 71%
Table 6
Statistical parameters for the assessment of modelling performance.
Statistical metrics Model accept-ance criteria CO concentration simulation Wind velocity simulation
Lisbon Aveiro Aveiro
FLUENT FLUENT + URVE VADIS VADIS + URVE VADIS VADIS + URVE
d 137.13 gm
3
61.32 gm
3
84.42 gm
3
29.03 gm
3
7.69 ms
1
0.59 ms
1
NMSE b1.5 0.14 0.10 0.14 0.04 1.60 0.29
r 0.76 0.82 0.78 0.86 0.57 0.04
FAC2 >0.5 0.81 0.90 0.84 1.00 0.00 0.79
Uncertainty (%) b50 59.70 43.65 59.72 18.89
Fig. 9. Close-up image of 3 m high horizontal streamlines and CO concentration eld with and without the effect of trees in Lisbon. Contours refer to the period between 9 and
10 a.m. Unlled rectangles indicate trees blocks and the white triangle is the AQS location.
Fig. 10. Close-up image of 3 m high horizontal streamlines and CO concentration eld with and without the effect of trees in Aveiro. Contours refer to the period between 10 and
11 a.m. Unlled rectangles indicate trees blocks and the white triangle is the AQS location.
549 J.H. Amorim et al. / Science of the Total Environment 461462 (2013) 541551
(from0.14 to 0.04) in Aveiro. These values are substantially lower than
the threshold of 1.5 dened by modelling acceptance criteria.
It was concluded that for an incoming wind direction of approxi-
mately 45 withthe mainavenue (Lisbonstudy case) COconcentrations
were found to increase by anaverage of 12% due to the aerodynamic ac-
tion of trees over the exchange rates of polluted air with the above
roof-level atmosphere. On the contrary, for the nearly parallel wind
(Aveiro) a general decrease of 16% on the CO concentrations was ob-
served in the entire area due to an enhanced ventilation and dispersion
capacity of the street canyon. However, in some spots, as in the location
of the AQS, the concentrationincreased due to the lower windvelocities
and the formation of additional recirculation areas, which can be mis-
leading given the overall benet.
The results demonstrated that local air quality is strongly dependent
on the synergies between the meteorological conditions, the 3Dcong-
uration of the street canyon, and the presence of vegetation. The effect
of the urban canopy (buildings and trees) on air pollutants dispersion
was shown to be complex and highly spatially dependent. These con-
clusions point out to the importance of integrating the knowledge pro-
vided by the application of CFD models in urban planning with the goal
of optimising the role of green areas on human comfort and health.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge the nancial support of the
3rd European Framework Program and the Portuguese Ministry of Sci-
ence, Technology and Higher Education, throughthe Foundationfor Sci-
ence and Technology (FCT), for the Post-Doc grants of J.H. Amorim
(SFRH/BPD/48121/2008) and J. Valente (SFRH/BPD/78933/2011). An
acknowledgment is also given to J. Santos for his participation in the
trafc counting carried out in Aveiro.
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