Vegetation influences on the human thermal comfort in outdoor spaces.

The purpose of this work is to evaluate the thermal comfort of human beings in outdoor spaces, taking into account the microclimatic modifications produced by vegetation. The parameters needed to formulate a comfort index are of differing orders of magnitude, so the same conditions could be seen as comfortable outdoors and yet be unacceptable indoors. One of the most influential landscape elements in the degree of comfort is vegetation. The main effects of vegetation are on solar radiation and wind. However urban wind is more affected by the configuration of urban development than by vegetation. This paper involves numerical evaluation of outdoor radiation effects. Two Barcelona district case studies are presented. Tue first deals with a pergola in a landscaped square. The second is a tree-lined street of with eastwest orientation. In both cases, measures of the main parameters were taken on a summer day and in winter.