Journal article
Quantifying outdoor thermal comfort in different street vegetation arrangements: Insights from a study in tropical and subtropical Australian cities
Urban Climate, Vol.67, pp.1-13
2026
Abstract
Street vegetation serves as a nature-based strategy for urban heat mitigation leading to improved outdoor thermal comfort (OTC). A sound understanding of spatial and temporal OTC variation in different street vegetation arrangements is essential to strategically develop urban heat mitigation planning and design. This study introduces a methodology framework that quantifies the thermal improvement in different street vegetation arrangements by using three indices - cooling intensity (CI), cooling area (CA) and cooling duration (CD). The framework is applied to four streets in tropical and subtropical Australian cities to quantify Physiological Equivalent Temperature (PET) over a 24-h period. Results indicate that the street with trees on the west-facing side experienced a longer duration of street thermal enhancement (up to 38% CD improvement). During daytime hours, the OTC improvement in the planting scenarios with additional trees in the street centre (median strip) incorporating multiple vertical layers of vegetation is more pronounced in the studied subtropical urban area (up to 2.02 °C CI in Ipswich) than that in the studied tropical urban area (up to 1.03 °C CI in Townsville). These findings can contribute to urban heat mitigation planning and design in tropical and subtropical cities worldwide. The methodology framework proposed in this study provides a foundation for quantifying spatial and temporal OTC variation in different street vegetation arrangements, and establishes an adaptive framework for landscape architects, urban designers and planners, and decision-makers worldwide to evaluate urban street thermal environments.
Details
- Title
- Quantifying outdoor thermal comfort in different street vegetation arrangements: Insights from a study in tropical and subtropical Australian cities
- Authors
- Jiawei Fu (Corresponding Author) - University of the Sunshine CoastSilvia Tavares - University of the Sunshine CoastDavid King - James Cook UniversityStephen Naylor - James Cook University
- Publication details
- Urban Climate, Vol.67, pp.1-13
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Date published
- 2026
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.uclim.2026.102967
- ISSN
- 2212-0955
- Copyright note
- © 2026 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ).
- Data Availability
- Data will be made available on request.
- Grant note
- The research is funded by James Cook University Postgraduate Research Scholarship (JCUPRS) and the College of Science and Engineering Competitive Research Training Grant (CRTG) of James Cook University. The authors appreciate the support from Bioclimatic and Sociotechnical Cities Lab (BASC Lab) of University of the Sunshine Coast.
- Organisation Unit
- Bioclimatic and Sociotechnical Cities Lab; School of Law and Society
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 991246278902621
- Output Type
- Journal article
Metrics
1 Record Views