Coupling GIS with CFD modeling to simulate urban pollutant dispersion

An integrated strategy incorporating computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and GIS technologies is proposed to simulate the flow fields and associated concentration distributions from contaminant releases in complex urban settings. CFD is able to provide realistic simulations for geometrically complex scenarios, however, inadequate of geometry construction for urban scale applications. The present work focuses on how to take advantage of the available geospatial data, the visualization and discretization capabilities of GIS in CFD modeling. Topography and building data stored in GIS databases are used to extract the detailed coordinates and heights of the buildings around the area of interest. Then the methodology of domain discretization, with restrict to underneath geometrical boundary, is proposed to generate computational grids for CFD simulations. For illustration purposes, a mixed residential and commercial area of Lujiazui located in Shanghai is investigated. The numerical output can be rendered dynamically in GIS environment.