Vegetation influences on the human thermal comfort in outdoor spaces: criteria for urban planning

This work addresses one of the most important questions in ecological engineering to do with cities: it is something which interests engineers and architects and, more generally, all those whose duty it is to make decisions on urban planning. A methodology is put forward relating green zones with the environmental comfort of a city since, after establishing this relationship, one can start to formulate comfort indices quantifying green zones for each zone or district of a city. Lastly, certain considerations connected with the arrangement of these green zones are analyzed giving a vital tool for urban planning with an ecological perspective. This paper analyses the impact of green zones on urban environments. To this end the quantity and quality of green areas required for a city to become comfortable, as well as its distribution in the urban tissue, are studied, taking into consideration users' accessibility to the green zones.