Potential of Urban Forest as an Alternative Substitution of Air Conditioner Case Study in IPB Darmaga Campus

Abstract- Most of the societies used the air conditioners to reduce overwarming. However, besides apart from costly, air conditioner can increase global warming. One attempt to control temperatures in urban areas is to develope urban forest. The purpose of this research was to assess the ability of urban forest vegetation in absorbing heat in replacing air conditioner, hence the efficiency of urban forest. The research were conducted in Bogor Agricultural University Darmaga Campus and the city of Surabaya. The research was initiated by performing measurements at room with Room Air Conditioner methods. The potential of urban forest made through measuring the heat flux density on vegetation. Based on data analysis, in IPB Darmaga Campus, it is known that the trees had the capability of heat absorption on average by 3.192 KJ/hour. Thus an air conditioning unit 1 PK (capacity 9.495 KJ/h) can be substituted by three trees, while one unit of AC 1,5 PK (capacity 18.990 KJ/h) can be substituted with six trees and one air conditioning unit 2 PK (capacity 28.485 KJ/h) can be substituted with nine trees. The efficiency of urban forest for the room that is 2-9 times cheaper than the use of air conditioning. While the total efficiency of the eight rooms studied is Rp 44.765.259,-/year. Then in Surabaya, the result show that the heat absorption ability of the trees was 2958.7 KJ/h (Bratang urban forest) and 2589 KJ/h (Wonorejo urban forest). One unit of 1 PK air conditioner (capacity of 9495 KJ/h) can be substituted by 3-4 trees, one unit of 1.5 PK air conditioner (capacity of 18990 KJ/h) can be substituted by 6-7 trees and one unit 2 PK of air conditioner (capacity 28458 KJ/h) can be substituted with 9-10 trees. The total efficiency of the eight rooms studied was found token R