The impact of vegetation on the environmental conditions of housing estates in Singapore
Citation
International journal on architectural science, v.6, no.1, 2005, pp. 31-37
Abstract
The population of Singapore is expected to increase from 4 million to 5.5 million in 40 to 50 years’ time. To a point in time, there will be a need to clear vegetation to build more houses to accommodate the growing population. However, as a result of this substitution of vegetation with dark coloured surfaces and buildings, the air temperature of the environment will be much higher than before, leading to the phenomenon of the urban heat island effect. Thus, the aim of this study is to investigate the impact of vegetation on the ambient air temperature and relative humidity in two neighbourhoods with distinctively different coverage of vegetation.
Experiments were conducted simultaneously in two areas with different coverage of vegetation, which were located next to each other. The instrumentations were set up on both sites over a period of 14 days to measure the ambient air temperature and relative humidity at the respective locations. From the experimental results collected, the site with higher greenery coverage had shown to have lower temperature and higher relative temperature of 34.63c whereas the site with higher vegetation coverage has a maximum average temperature of 32.46c. The maximum average temperature different between the two sites is 2.32c. However due to this higher vegetation coverage, it has also caused a significant built up of moisture in the air and resulting in higher relative humidity.
(1) Introduction
(2) Literature review
(3) Methodology
(a) Description of the two sites
(b) Setting up of instrumentations
(4) Data analysis
(a) Analysis of ambient air temperature
(b) Analysis of relative humidity
(5) Conclusion
(6) References
Description
Subject
Type
Article
Format
Date
2005
Language
en