ENVI-met is a three-dimensional computer model which analyzes micro-scale thermal interactions within urban environments. It is one of the first models that seek to reproduce the major processes in the atmosphere that affect the microclimate, including the simulation of wind flows, turbulence, radiation fluxes, temperature and humidity, on a well-founded physical basis (i.e. the fundamental laws of fluid dynamics and thermodynamics). The software uses both the calculation of fluid dynamics characteristics, such as air flow and turbulence, as well as the thermodynamic processes taking place at the ground surface, at walls, at roofs and at plants.
ENVI-met developed by Michael Bruse as a result of his PhD Thesis under the topics “The Influence of Local Environmental Design on Microclimate” at University of Bochum Germany in 1999. It is also regulary updated and freeware. Latest version of ENVI-met V3.1 released on October 2009 at www.envi-met.com. On this website, Mr, Bruse announced that the ENVI-met V4 has already developed but has not been published yet.
Numerous researchers have used this software to analyze the research problems as their research’s objective. It’s relatively few input parameters and complex meteorological output parameters are the reason why this software is widely use by the urban environment researchers.
The comparison of ENVI-met results with field studies is important question, in order to solve the problem of lacking validation, which is still common for most urban numerical models. Ali-Toudert (2005) found a satisfied result when compared the microclimate field measurement on Ghardia that has hot dry climate and the result from ENVI-met simulation.
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