Abstract
Walking is being promoted for health and transportation purposes across all climatic regions in the US and beyond. Despite this, an uncomfortable microclimate condition along sidewalks is one of the major deterrents of walking, and more empirical research is needed to determine the risks of heat exposure to pedestrians while walking. This study examined the effect of street trees and grass along sidewalks on air temperatures. A series of thermal images were taken at the average heights of adults and children in the US to objectively measure the air temperatures of 10 sidewalk segments in College Station, TX, USA. After controlling the other key physical environmental conditions, sidewalks with more trees or wider grass buffer areas had lower air temperatures than those with less vegetation. Children were exposed to higher temperatures due to the greater exposure or proximity to the pavement surface, which tends to have higher radiant heat. Multivariate regression analysis suggested that the configuration of trees and grass buffers along the sidewalks helped to promote pleasant thermal conditions and reduced the differences in ambient air temperatures measured at child and adult heights. This study suggests that street trees and vegetated ground help reduce the air temperatures, leading to more thermally comfortable environments for both child and adult pedestrians in warm climates. The thermal implications of street landscape require further attention by researchers and policy makers that are interested in promoting outdoor walking.
Highlights
Excessive heat exposure can cause many health problems, such as dehydration, heat strokes, and skin cancer [1,2,3]
Four paired groups different numbers of street trees werephysical compared to assess influence of existing trees on the mean with air temperature, while controlling for other conditions, the influence of width existing on the mean air When temperature, controlling for other physical such as sidewalk andtrees the presence of grass
The mean of air temperature of type F in the afternoon was 5.29 ◦ C higher than that of type C, and type H was 1.01 ◦ C higher in the afternoon than that of type G. These findings suggested that grass areas along sidewalks played a significant role in decreasing the ambient air temperature, and the temperature reduction was greater in the afternoon, with the exception of one pair
Summary
Excessive heat exposure can cause many health problems, such as dehydration, heat strokes, and skin cancer [1,2,3]. Heat exposure can increase heat stress and heat-related mortality rates [4,5,6]. Such heat-related risks are not equal across different population groups. Given the importance of walking as a popular source of obtaining healthy physical activity [10,11,12], and weather as a key barrier to walking, providing thermally comfortable pedestrian environments can bring many additional health benefits. Previous studies reported that undesirable thermal conditions for pedestrians can be mediated by street-level vegetation, such as trees [13,14,15,16], which can provide shaded surfaces, and grass cover, which can emit less long-wave radiation and
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