TY - JOUR
T1 - Reflective Parking Lots for Microscale Urban Heat Island Mitigation
AU - Sen, Sushobhan
AU - Fernandèz, Juan Pablo Ricardo Mendèz Ruiz
AU - Roesler, Jeffery
N1 - Funding Information:
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Funding for this study was provided by the U.S. Department of Transportation (U.S. DOT) through the University Transportation Center for Highway Pavement Preservation (UTCHPP) at Michigan State University with Contract Number DTR13-G-UTC44.
PY - 2020/1/1
Y1 - 2020/1/1
N2 - Paved surfaces, especially parking lots, occupy a significant proportion of the horizontal surface area in cities. The low albedo of many of these parking lots contribute to the urban heat island (UHI) and affect the local microclimate around them. The albedo of six parking lots in Champaign-Urbana, U.S., was measured using a ground-based albedometer and was found to vary between 0.18 and 0.28, with a statistically significant variation in albedo at different points within each parking lot. The numerical model ENVI-met was then employed to model the microclimate around one of these lots to examine the potential of increasing its albedo to mitigate UHI. The higher albedo decreased the air temperature over the parking lot by about 1°C. Furthermore, the Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI), which combines the effects of air temperature, reflected radiation, wind speed, clothing, metabolism, and humidity, demonstrated that increasing the albedo of the parking lot could improve overall pedestrian thermal comfort and even eliminate it during several hours of the day, and thus mitigate the UHI effect.
AB - Paved surfaces, especially parking lots, occupy a significant proportion of the horizontal surface area in cities. The low albedo of many of these parking lots contribute to the urban heat island (UHI) and affect the local microclimate around them. The albedo of six parking lots in Champaign-Urbana, U.S., was measured using a ground-based albedometer and was found to vary between 0.18 and 0.28, with a statistically significant variation in albedo at different points within each parking lot. The numerical model ENVI-met was then employed to model the microclimate around one of these lots to examine the potential of increasing its albedo to mitigate UHI. The higher albedo decreased the air temperature over the parking lot by about 1°C. Furthermore, the Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI), which combines the effects of air temperature, reflected radiation, wind speed, clothing, metabolism, and humidity, demonstrated that increasing the albedo of the parking lot could improve overall pedestrian thermal comfort and even eliminate it during several hours of the day, and thus mitigate the UHI effect.
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U2 - 10.1177/0361198120919401
DO - 10.1177/0361198120919401
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85094906326
VL - 2674
SP - 663
EP - 671
JO - Transportation Research Record
JF - Transportation Research Record
SN - 0361-1981
IS - 8
ER -