Smart Green Planning for Urban Environments: The City Digital Twin of Imola

Abstract

AbstractUrban green spaces are significant in adjusting the urban microclimate. Street trees are the most influential type of urban vegetation in reducing heat stress. However, simulating trees’ 3D models, wind flow, surface temperature, and radiation parameters in complex urban settings and producing high-resolution microclimate maps is often time-consuming and requires extensive computing processes. Therefore, efficient approaches are needed to visualize green scenarios for the future development of the cities. Smart green planning of Imola aims at developing a microclimate digital twin for the city that provides complementary and supportive roles in the collection and processing of micrometeorological data, automates microclimate modeling, and represents climatic interactions virtually. This chapter sets out to explore the smart green planning of Imola in two parts. The first part is focused on the potential and intentions of developing the urban microclimate digital twin for the city of Imola and its conceptual framework. The second part aims at testing and evaluating the applicability of the proposed microclimate digital twin by implementing it in the city of Imola. This digital twin can provide urban planners and policymakers with a precise and useful methodology for real-time simulation of the cooling effects of the trees and other green systems on urban-scale, pedestrian-level thermal comfort, and also a guarantee for the functionality of policies in different urban settings.