Outdoor comfort conditions in urban areas: On citizens’ perspective about microclimate mitigation of urban transit areas

Abstract

Understanding citizen environmental perception is a crucial issue to improve outdoor environmental and landscape quality. This paper is aimed at investigating the perspective of travelling citizens about local microclimate conditions in a transportation open-air hub of an urban district in central Italy, to propose effective mitigation strategies. Therefore, a survey was submitted to pedestrians while crossing the area to understand their actual perception of visual-thermal-acoustic conditions characterizing the outdoor environment, with varying weather and personal characteristics. Simultaneously, the continuous in-situ monitoring of the main environmental parameters was performed. Finally, the benefits generated by selected microclimate mitigation and landscape improvement strategies were quantitatively assessed by means of validated microclimate district models. Results of the field survey highlighted the minor tolerance of the local environment by local citizens compared to tourists, especially those coming from denser and more polluted cities. Moreover, the simulations confirmed the capability of selected microclimate mitigation strategies against anthropogenic heat, to improve pedestrians’ outdoor thermal comfort conditions in summer, without winter penalties. In particular, the vegetation increase, according to pedestrians’ request for additional green areas, combined to other solutions for sustainable landscape change, showed the most significant impact in summer overheating mitigation and urban resilience to anthropogenic climate change.