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

Ernesto Antonini, Vincenzo Vodola, Jacopo Gaspari and Michaela De Giglio
Additional contact information
Ernesto Antonini: Department di Architecture—DA, University of Bologna, Viale Risorgimento 2, 40136 Bologna, Italy
Vincenzo Vodola: Department di Architecture—DA, University of Bologna, Viale Risorgimento 2, 40136 Bologna, Italy
Jacopo Gaspari: Department di Architecture—DA, University of Bologna, Viale Risorgimento 2, 40136 Bologna, Italy
Michaela De Giglio: Department di Architecture—DA, University of Bologna, Viale Risorgimento 2, 40136 Bologna, Italy

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 8, 1-22

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.

Keywords: outdoor thermal comfort; human thermal perception; thermal comfort assessment; quality of life (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/8/2079/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/8/2079/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:13:y:2020:i:8:p:2079-:d:348462

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().