Impacts of urban expansion and future green planting on summer precipitation in the Beijing metropolitan area

Results show that urban expansion can produce less evaporation, higher surface temperatures, larger sensible heat fluxes, and a deeper boundary layer. This leads to less water vapor, more mixing of water vapor in the boundary layer, and hence less (more) convective available potential energy (convective inhibition energy). The combination of these factors induced by expanding urban surfaces is helpful in reducing precipitation for the Beijing area in general and, in particular, for the Miyun reservoir area (the major source for the local water supply).

Increasing green vegetation coverage in the Beijing area would produce more rainfall, and model results show that planting grass seems more effective than planting trees. For the same vegetation, the rainfall difference from simulations using two green-planting layouts (annular and cuneiform) is small.