Paper Title
Modelling The Impact of Vanish Green Areas on Local Meteorological Conditionsin Sofia, Bulgaria

Abstract
The rapid and unprecedented growth of the Bulgarian capital, Sofia city, brought serious challenges, including environmental degradation and increased human health risks associated with heat, noise, pollution and crowding. Approximately a quarter of the Bulgarian population (1,600,000) live in Sofia city at present. A significant part of the open space has vanished as result of building construction during last couple of decades. The expansion of the city impacted the agricultural land and green areas, reaching the foothills of the mountains Vitosha and StaraPlanina. It is widely known that urban green spaces such as parks and urban forests help reducing heat accumulation and improve air quality. The goal of this study is to investigate the impact of disappearing green areas in Sofia and its suburbs on local meteorological conditions. The Advanced Research version of the Weather Research and Forecasting model (ARW-WRFv3.9) is employed to simulate the local meteorological conditions using fine horizontal grid that is 500 meters of the most inner domain. Very high resolution of orography (1 arcsec) and land cover data (3 arcsec) are used. Three experiments were performed including substitution of the urban area with most representative rural land cover, replacement of existing urban area with high-density urban area in whole city, and extension of high-density urban area with parks and city forests are performed. The existing local meteorological conditions are compared with results from the hypothetic city development. The study aims to draw attention on the negative effects of losing green areas in our urban environment. Index Terms -Heat Fluxes, Numerical Modelling, Urban Environment, Urban Green Areas.