A new experimental dataset to study climate benefits from well-watered trees in a reduced scale canyon street.

In a context of global climate change with increasing temperatures, it is essential to look for adaptation solutions in urban areas. Street trees are an interesting solution, as they can provide cooling benefits through shading and evapotranspiration.

In the literature, experimental studies looking at street trees benefits often lack information on soil water status (that can affect evapotranspiration) and numerical studies often need further validation against experimental data.

In the present contribution, we introduce a new experimental facility and dataset to study tree benefits, based on an outdoor reduced-scale canyon street in Angers, France. The street is oriented north-south, with an aspect ratio of 1, and organized into three zones: two zones with a central alignment of 5 ornamental apple trees, and one control zone without trees. It is instrumented along the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum, and water inputs are controlled with a drip-irrigation system.

In summer 2020, data were acquired continuously on 26 days, with well-watered conditions for trees. In each zone, microclimate variables and radiation fluxes, soil water status, tree leaf temperature and transpiration were measured. The trees were characterized in terms of leaf area and crown dimensions. The dataset is fully qualified, and available online under CC-BY-4.0 license (https://doi.org/10.57932/23cfb936-dd25-4198-9277-190982403842). The data can be useful to researchers in urban meteorology and environmental physics and to evaluate microclimate models.