Abstract/Summary

Thermal emissions or anthropogenic heat fluxes (QF) from human activities impact the local and larger scales urban climate. DASH considers both urban form and function in simulating QF by use of an agent-based structure that includes behavioural characteristics of city populations. This allows social practices to drive the calculation of QF as occupants move, varying by day type, demographic, location, activity, socio-economic factors and in response to environmental conditions. The spatial resolution depends on data availability. DASH has simple transport and building energy models to allow simulation of dynamic vehicle use, occupancy and heating/cooling demand, with subsequent release of energy to the outdoor environment through the building fabric. Building stock variations are captured using archetypes. Evaluation of DASH in Greater London for various periods in 2015 uses a top-down inventory model (GQF) and national energy consumption statistics. DASH reproduces the expected spatial and temporal patterns of QF but the annual average is smaller than published energy data. Overall the model generally performs well, including for domestic appliance energy use against top down model results. DASH could be coupled to an urban land surface model and/or used offline for developing coefficients for simpler/faster models.