Outdoor Wellbeing and Quality of Life: A Scientific Literature Review on Thermal Comfort

Abstract

While indoor comfort represents a widely investigated research topic with relation to sustainable development and energy-demand reduction in the built environment, outdoor comfort remains an open field of study, especially with reference to the impacts of climate change and the quality of life for inhabitants, particularly in urban contexts. Despite the relevant efforts spent in the last few decades to advance the understanding of phenomena and the knowledge in this specific field, which obtained much evidence for the topic's relevance, a comprehensive picture of the studies, as well as a classification of the interconnected subjects and outcomes, is still lacking. This paper reports the outcomes of a literature review aimed at screening the available resources dealing with outdoor thermal comfort, in order to provide a state-of-the-art review that identifies the main topics focused by the researchers, as well as the barriers in defining suitable indexes for assessing thermal comfort in outdoor environments. Although several accurate models and software are available to quantify outdoor human comfort, the evocated state of mind of the final user still remains at the core of this uncertain process.Energies 2020, 13, 2079 2 of 22 more people to use outdoor spaces would bring greater benefits into the physical, environmental, economic and social spheres of the cities [6-9].Scientists worldwide have thus focused their attention on this topic, making available a wide range of tools and methods to assess human thermal outdoor comfort in different climatic contexts. Over 100 biometeorological and thermal stress indexes [10] have been developed, adopting different approaches and rationales, aiming at linking the microclimatic conditions to the perceived sensations.Since the available knowledge on human thermal perception and related evaluation protocols were mainly the ones previously developed for interior spaces and other confined spaces, the assessment of outdoor conditions initially refers to these patterns [11].In fact, human thermal comfort and its assessment were studied since the beginning of the 20th Century, when the first simplified models were developed [12]. The two node model applied thermodynamics principles to energy exchanges between the human body and its thermal environment [13] for the first time during the 1930s, but it is only from the 1960s onwards that researchers were able to analyze the main climatic parameters connected to the perception of thermal comfort (e.g., air temperature, radiant temperature, air humidity, air flow velocity) when the first climate chambers were made available [14]. The cornerstone studies of Givoni [15] and Fanger [16] led in the following years to the identification of new parameters that are currently considered essential elements in the contemporary assessment of thermal comfort. The advances in the physics of heat exchange knowledge gained during the 1980s and the increasing availability of computer tools to support the research activity allowed relevant progress on...

Thermal stress and comfort assessment in urban areas using Copernicus Climate Change Service Era 5 reanalysis and collected microclimatic data

“…Because of this, these LCZs have conditions to have higher temperatures compared to other LCZs and rural areas. As cities expand, contributing to the intensification of Urban Heat Island effects (Huang et al 2017 ), it is in the most densely built urban areas where these effects are most pronounced (Antonini et al 2020 ; Lin et al 2017 ; Lopes et al 2013 ; Zheng et al 2023 ). As Zheng et al ( 2023 ) notes, UHII conditions are closely linked to urban morphology.…”

“…These extreme temperatures and induced thermal stress pose threats to human well-being and health (Foshag et al 2020 ). As cities continue to grow, it is predicted that the Urban Heat Island (UHI) will intensify, thereby jeopardizing human thermal comfort (Antonini et al 2020 ; Elnabawi and Hamza 2020 ; Huang et al 2017 ; Lin et al 2017 ). Oliveira et al, ( 2021b ) found that in Lisbon the UHI is not intensified by extreme heat phenomena such as heatwaves.…”

The Relation between Outdoor Microclimate and People Flow in Historic City Context the Case Study of Bologna within the ROCK Project

“…The quality of life in urban environments [1] is closely related to the above-mentioned elements and their possible combinations. Among them, some are directly measurable, such as climate and the physical and dimensional characteristics of architectural settlements; others are indirectly measurable, such as crowding, traffic and pollution and, finally, others cannot be measured, i.e., people's affection and care for certain city areas.…”

Characterization of Urban Greening in a District of Lecce (Southern Italy) for the Analysis of CO2 Storage and Air Pollutant Dispersion

“…i-Tree Canopy was recently applied in the scientific literature to quantify green cover and its economic benefits [25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33], while there are no studies applying such a tool in Lecce. ENVI-met was successfully employed in studies analyzing the effects of vegetation on microclimate and thermal comfort in the urban environment, where it was thoroughly described [34][35][36][37][38][39][40]; it was also employed for an investigation of air quality, focusing on air pollutant deposition and dispersion in several studies [41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49], which mostly found a satisfactory agreement with observations and concluded that, although it is not a very sophisticated model, it provides sufficient functions for establishing small-scale pollutant distribution for studies of urban greening in near-road environments. Specifically, the model was only applied to evaluate the microclimate in some districts of Lecce [50][51][52], while, to our knowledge, there are no papers applying the model to evaluate the impact of urban greening on the dispersion of air pollutants in the city of Lecce.…”