Estimating the Effect of Urban Trees on Summertime Electricity Use and Air Quality Improvement in Urban Areas –Amman as a Case Study

Abstract

The importance of trees as an urban microclimatic modifier is well known, but little work has been done on semi-arid climates in general, while no similar studies have been done on a local level in Jordan. Conducting such studies, especially on the local level, will provide useful data on trees as a shading device and their role in mitigating the urban heat island effect and in minimizing the continuous rising temperature in city cores and dense areas. This study aims at providing professionals as well as architects with the impacts of shade trees on air conditioning electricity use for residential buildings in Amman, hence an awareness of this issue is encouraged reflecting on both professionals and city residents. The study suggests a tree planting design guideline based on the computer simulation results for new and existing residential construction. Based on the outcomes, energy savings calculated for 50 typical residential buildings in Al-Hashmi Al-Shamali district, indicate that after planting 100 Pistacia atlantica (Mount Atlad Pistachio) medium size trees based on a specific criteria in respect to the landuse regulations for residential C; planted trees succeeded in lowering the cooling loads where the energy savings in summer were about 43.34%, 42.4% and 28.11%, for east, west and south elevations, respectively. These results indicated that the effect of planting trees around these building succeeded in lowering the total cooling loads by 35.87 %. This could be generalized to East Amman areas where the climatic conditions, building characteristics and lot setbacks are very similar to Al-Hashmi Al-Shamali. Keywords: Amman, energy savings, revit, tree benefits, cooling energym semi-arid climate.