Identifying the mechanisms by which irrigation can cool urban green spaces in summer

This dataset contains the measured soil moisture and microclimate data from two (2021 and 2022) urban green space irrigation experiments conducted in Burnley, Melbourne, Australia. The experiments consisted of two treatments, irrigated turf and unirrigated turf. The purpose of the experiments was to provide testing (2021) and evaluation (2022) data for an urban ecohydrological model, UT&C. 

After evaluating the performance of UT&C in modelling soil moisture and microclimate, UT&C was used to model the surface energy balance and evapotranspiration processes of the irrigated and unirrigated turf. This dataset also contains the modelled soil moisture, microclimate, surface energy balance and evapotranspiration data, as well as the measured background climate data at the reference climate station and the forcing data for the model.

The aims of this study were to:i) identify the proportional contribution of different evapotranspiration processes to irrigation cooling effect, and ii) quantify the impacts of different irrigation amounts (from 2 to 30 mm/d) on the cooling effect of irrigating turfgrass in Melbourne, Australia during normal summer conditions.

This study was published in:Pui Kwan Cheung, Naika Meili, Kerry A. Nice, Stephen J. Livesley (2024). Identifying the mechanisms by which irrigation can cool urban green spaces in summer. Urban Climate. 55,101914. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.uclim.2024.101914.