Progress of researches and practices of urban ventilation corridors in China

Abstract

<p>As an effective method to solve urban climate problems, ventilation corridor has been incorporated into land space planning. Here, we reviewed the origin, function and mechanism, as well as the progress of researches and practices of urban ventilation corridor in China, aiming to provide useful reference for scientific and reasonable corridor planning. The main function of ventilation corridor is to provide a channel for air flow into the urban built-up area and to guide the optimization of urban spatial form to reduce the loss of wind. By combining with the scientific protection of urban open space, local air circulation can be promoted, which could alleviate urban heat island effect, reduce air pollution and building energy consumption, and improve the livability of cities. However, land type, space form, building height and density of cities will affect the function of ventilation corridor to a large extent. The research and practice of ventilation corridor planning in China has experienced four stages: ancient Fengshui and Yingcheng, the restoration stage from the founding of People's Republic of China to the end of 1990s, the development stage in the early 21st century, and the new stage of ecological priority since 2012. More than two-thirds of the provinces in China have carried out relevant work and achieved important progress in technical methods, application strategies, policies and regulations. Ventilation corridor planning reflects the pursuit of development quality of Chinese cities under rapid urbanization. There are some problems with respect to intervention time, cross domain integration, convergence with urban design, and corridor performance evaluation mechanism in the process of city planning. Further improvements in the technical aspects of meteorological observation analysis, simulation, and effect evaluation should be given full consideration.</p>