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4.1
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Journals
Atmosphere
Special Issues
Urban Design, Microclimate and Environment
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Urban Design, Microclimate and Environment

A special issue of Atmosphere (ISSN 2073-4433). This special issue belongs to the section "Biometeorology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (1 December 2022) | Viewed by 18904

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Thomas Bartzanas

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Natural Resources Management and Agricultural Engineering, Agricultural University of Athens, 11855 Athens, Greece
Interests: greenhouse; hydroponics; vertical farming; environmental control; environmental impact assessment; CFD
Dr. Dafni Avgoustaki

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Natural Resources Management and Agricultural Engineering, Agricultural University of Athens, 11855 Athens, Greece
Interests: controlled environment agriculture; vertical farming; artificial lighting; plant physiology; energy demand; renewable energy; environmental assessment; resource use efficiency
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

From recent studies on the global population, it is projected that by 2050 the global population will reach approx. 9.5 billion people, and 70% of the population will be gathered in urban and peri-urban areas. This rapid urbanisation creates problems in the urban environment leading to poor urban health while affecting the global energy, flow and balance of matter and food production. This complexity of different urban forms and building densities affects the microclimate and thermal comfort in the related areas. At the same time, according to the General Circulation Models (GCMs) the future climate will be marked by longer, more frequent and more intense urban heat waves which will be associated with severe air pollution events and exacerbated inland flooding caused by heavy precipitation and prolonged coastal flooding due to the rise of the sea level. Though the majority of the conducted research presents global climate information in a special scale, there is limited information at urban and peri-urban scale. Sustainable practices, green spaces, and greater energy efficiency in buildings and urban infrastructure will help ensure that our cities offer a healthy climate for human lives.

The goals of this Special Issue are:

  • To present the influence of urban morphology, urban design (e.g., streets and building geometry), landscape elements including vegetation and food production types as well as material properties and their effects on pedestrian thermal comfort in cities.
  • To assess, discuss and propose solutions of green infrastructure strategies regarding urban microclimate and GHG emissions.
  • To fill the scientific knowledge gap by exploring fundamental evidence-based adaptation strategies to design thermally safe cities with respect to the urban microclimate while providing thermally comfortable, safe and healthy living conditions to urban residents.

Prof. Dr. Thomas Bartzanas
Dr. Dafni Avgoustaki
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Atmosphere is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  •  microclimate
  •  urban environment
  •  urban design
  •  urban farming
  •  urban planning
  •  thermal heat
  •  green strategy
  •  GHG emissions
  •  Green cities

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

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20 pages, 1062 KiB  
Article
Life Cycle Assessment of a Prospective Technology for Building-Integrated Production of Broccoli Microgreens
by Michael G. Parkes, Julieth P. Cubillos Tovar, Filipe Dourado, Tiago Domingos and Ricardo F. M. Teixeira
Atmosphere 2022, 13(8), 1317; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos13081317 - 18 Aug 2022
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 2869
Abstract
Indoor Vertical Farms (IVF) can contribute to urban circular food systems by reducing food waste and increasing resource use efficiency. They are also known for high energy consumption but could potentially be improved by integration with buildings. Here, we aim to quantify the [...] Read more.
Indoor Vertical Farms (IVF) can contribute to urban circular food systems by reducing food waste and increasing resource use efficiency. They are also known for high energy consumption but could potentially be improved by integration with buildings. Here, we aim to quantify the environmental performance of a prospective building-integrated urban farm. We performed a Life Cycle Assessment for a unit installed in a university campus in Portugal, producing broccoli microgreens for salads. This technology integrates IVF, product processing and Internet of Things with unused space. Its environmental performance was analyzed using two supply scenarios and a renewable energy variation was applied to each scenario. Results show that the IVF system produces 7.5 kg of microgreens daily with a global warming potential of 18.6 kg CO2e/kg in the case of supply direct on campus, or 22.2 kg CO2e/kg in the case of supply off campus to retailers within a 10-km radius. Consistently in both scenarios, electricity contributed the highest emission, with 10.03 kg CO2e/kg, followed by seeds, with 4.04 kg CO2e/kg. The additional use of photovoltaic electricity yields a reduction of emissions by 32%; an improvement of approximately 16% was found for most environmental categories. A shortened supply chain, coupled with renewable electricity production, can contribute significantly to the environmental performance of building-integrated IVF. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Design, Microclimate and Environment)
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Review

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27 pages, 1052 KiB  
Review
A Systematic Literature Review on Controlled-Environment Agriculture: How Vertical Farms and Greenhouses Can Influence the Sustainability and Footprint of Urban Microclimate with Local Food Production
by Christos Vatistas, Dafni Despoina Avgoustaki and Thomas Bartzanas
Atmosphere 2022, 13(8), 1258; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos13081258 - 08 Aug 2022
Cited by 22 | Viewed by 12112
Abstract
The rapidly growing population and increasing urbanization have created the need to produce more food and transport it safely to urban areas where the majority of global consumers live. Open-field agriculture and food distribution systems have a lot of food waste, and, in [...] Read more.
The rapidly growing population and increasing urbanization have created the need to produce more food and transport it safely to urban areas where the majority of global consumers live. Open-field agriculture and food distribution systems have a lot of food waste, and, in parallel, the largest percentage of available arable land is already occupied. In most cases, food produced by compatible agricultural methods needs to be frozen and travel several miles until it reaches the consumer, with high amounts of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions produced by this process, making it an unsustainable method with huge amounts of CO2 emissions related with fresh food products. This research contains an extensive literature review based on 165 international publications (from 2006–2022) describing and analyzing the efficiency and impact of controlled-environment agriculture (CEA) methods, and more precisely, greenhouses (GHs) and vertical farms (VFs), in the environmental footprint of food production and consumption. Based on various publications, we could draw the conclusion that VFs could highly influence a greener transition to the sustainability of urban consumption with reduced CO2 emissions sourcing from food transportation and limited post-harvest processes. However, there is a significant demand for further energy efficiency, specifically when it comes to artificial lighting operations inside VFs. A large-scale implementation of VFs that operate with renewable energy sources (RES) could lead to significant urban decarbonization by providing the opportunity for integrated energy–food nexus systems. Under this direction, VFs could optimize the way that cities interact with meeting the food and energy demand in densely urbanized areas. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Design, Microclimate and Environment)
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26 pages, 640 KiB  
Review
Narratives and Benefits of Agricultural Technology in Urban Buildings: A Review
by Michael G. Parkes, Duarte Leal Azevedo, Tiago Domingos and Ricardo F. M. Teixeira
Atmosphere 2022, 13(8), 1250; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos13081250 - 06 Aug 2022
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 3218
Abstract
The literature on agricultural technology (ag-tech) for urban agriculture (UA) offers many narratives about its benefits in addressing the challenges of sustainability and food security for urban environments. In this paper, we present a literature review for the period 2015–2022 of research carried [...] Read more.
The literature on agricultural technology (ag-tech) for urban agriculture (UA) offers many narratives about its benefits in addressing the challenges of sustainability and food security for urban environments. In this paper, we present a literature review for the period 2015–2022 of research carried out on currently active UA installations. We aim to systematise the most common narratives regarding the benefits of controlled environment agriculture (CEA) and soil-less growing systems in urban buildings and assess the existence of peer-reviewed data supporting these claims. The review was based on 28 articles that provided detailed information about 68 active UA installations depicting multiple types of ag-tech and regions. The results show that most research conducted for commercial UA-CEA installations was carried out in North America. Standalone CEA greenhouses or plant factories as commercial producers for urban areas were mostly found in Asia and Europe. The most often cited benefits are that the integration of multiple CEA technologies with energy systems or building climate systems enables the transfer of heat through thermal airflow exchange and CO2 fertilisation to improve commercial production. However, this review shows that the data quantifying the benefits are limited and, therefore, the exact environmental effects of CEA are undetermined. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Design, Microclimate and Environment)
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