Greening the cities – Improving micro-scale thermal conditions and enhancing sustainable urban environments

To improve the urban environment in general and contribute to the greening of urban areas in the cities of Central and Southeastern Europe, an international project was implemented in the period 2019-2022. The GReENERGY project is an international/cross-border project that is implemented in Europe, with the aim to improve the environmental conditions in cities, i.e., in this case, the urban areas of Novi Sad (Serbia) and Osijek (Croatia). Therefore, the activities of the GReENERGY project aim to: a) encourage the production and consumption of green energy through the installation of new solar power plants in public buildings, and reduce the energy consumption from conventional sources that are the major emitters of CO₂; b) highlight the installation of vertical and horizontal greenery (green roofs and walls) on public facilities as one of the nature-based solutions (NBS) that ensure increased energy efficiency of buildings; and c) help preserve the urban ecosystem and improve outdoor thermal comfort conditions on a microscale.

The microclimate monitoring during the summer period and on hot days around a public building in Novi Sad (School for primary and secondary education “Milan Petrović”) showed that the thermal conditions are mainly driven by a combination of direct sunlight exposure or the presence of tree/building shadows. In our case, the differences in globe temperature (Tg) range from 6 °C to 10 °C during daytime at the micro-scale. A noticeable cooling effect caused by horizontal/vertical green areas is present during the night and based on datasets from our network this cooling effect is about 2 °C in Tg values.

Finally, thanks to the GReENERGY project the AWS network was installed around the public building in Novi Sad, and further monitoring, analysis and research of datasets from the network and current microclimate conditions in Novi Sad is supported by a new regional project financed by Autonomous Province of Vojvodina (regional government).

Finally, thanks to the GReENERGY project, an AWS network was installed around a public building in Novi Sad, and further monitoring, analysis and research of datasets from the network and current microclimate conditions in Novi Sad is supported by a new regional project financed by the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina (regional government).

Acknowledgement: The research was supported by the project entitled: "Improving the environment in Vojvodina in order to adapt to climate change and reduce the risk of natural disasters" (no. 142-451-3161/2022-01) financed by the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina.