Title : INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL URBAN CHARACTERISTICS ON OUTDOOR THERMAL COMFORT FOR A HOT-HUMID CITY IN INDIA
Authors : Chirag Deb
Publication : February 13-16, 2013
Volume :
Pages : 10-Jan
Price : 250
Abstract : The development of sustainable cities well includes people’s satisfaction, experience and perception of quality of their everyday environments. Comfortable outdoor environments play a crucial role in providing a front for various outdoor activities and day to day human interactions. With increased urbanization, particularly in the developing countries, there is a need to set urban planning guidelines that takes climatic conscious design approach into account. Such an attempt is made in this study by assessing the influence of physical characteristics of urban locations upon th zir respective microclimates. For this purpose, six urban locations are selected over a metropolitan city, Chennai in India and their microclimatic conditions are monitored during the summer months of April, May and June. The results show that factors that aid comfortable outdoor environments are openness to sea breeze, high Height to Width (H/W) ratios and high green coverage of a location. It is also observed that shading of urban locations considerably brings down the thermal comfort conditions to an adequate level. The results of such a study have implications on climate conscious urban design and planning for cities experiencing similar climatic conditions. Keywords: Outdoor thermal comfort; Urban microclimate; Physiological equivalent temperature; Hot-humid climate; Urban design characteristics.