Improving a pavement-watering method on the basis of pavement surface temperature measurements

Martin Hendel (1, 2) , Morgane Colombert (1) , Youssef Diab (3) , Laurent Royon (2)

1 EIVP - Ecole des Ingénieurs de la Ville de Paris
2 MSC - Matière et Systèmes Complexes
3 Equipe Génie Urbain

Pavement-watering has been studied since the 1990's and is currently considered a promising tool for urban heat island reduction and climate change adaptation. However, possible future water resource availability problems require that water consumption be optimized. Although pavement heat flux can be studied to improve pavement-watering methods (frequency and water consumption), these measurements are costly and require invasive construction work to install appropriate sensors in a dense urban environment. Therefore, we analyzed measurements of pavement surface temperatures in search of alternative information relevant to this goal. It was found that high frequency surface temperature measurements (more than every 5 minutes) made by an infrared camera can provide enough information to optimize the watering frequency. Furthermore, if the water retaining capacity of the studied pavement is known, optimization of total water consumption is possible on the sole basis of surface temperature measurements.

Mots clés: Pavement-watering; evaporative cooling; pavement temperature; urban heat island; climate change adaptation

Domaines: Sciences de l'ingénieur [physics]; Physique Générale [physics.gen-ph]; Ingénierie de l'environnement

Martin Hendel, Morgane Colombert, Youssef Diab, Laurent Royon. Improving a pavement-watering method on the basis of pavement surface temperature measurements. 2014. ⟨hal-01698358v1⟩