A pavement-watering thermal model for SOLENE-microclimat: Development and evaluation

In a dense urban area, pavement watering could be a solution to mitigate the Urban Heat Island. So far, mainly experimental studies have been used to evaluate watering techniques. In this study, a soil model dedicated to pavement watering has been developed within the urban climate model SOLENE-microclimat. This watering model is presented and evaluated via a measurement campaign performed on an asphalt car park during warm days. The measurement campaign reveals that the surface cooling is mainly due to evaporation (80%). However, under warm conditions, the heat flux exchanged between the runoff water and the surface should also be modelled. Indeed, watering events are modelled through a runoff convective heat flux and a latent heat flux. The mean daily RMSE between estimated and observed surface temperature is 1.04°C, 0.86°C, 0.66°C, 0.35°C and 0.21°C respectively at the surface, 5 cm-, 10 cm-, 34 cm- and 50 cm-depths.