The ‘cooling urban water environments’ concept: potential for application in practice

Research indicates that water in small water bodies has negligible cooling effects, but also that its surrounding environment can be designed to become cooler by applying the ‘cooling urban water environments’ concept. However, this concept was created for generic urban environments and not tested in practice. This study applies this concept to a specific urban environment, tests its micrometeorological performance and surveys how urban designers and landscape architects regard its usability. The results indicate that the ‘cooling urban water environments’ concept can lead to site-specific cooling effects and that there is willingness amongst practitioners to apply this concept.