Reduction of Urban Heat Islands with Whitetopping

The requirements for traffic areas in the urban zone are manifold and continuously increasing. The reduction of the heat islands, which adversely affect the urban climate due to their increased temperature, is of importance for the residents. An investigation revealed that light-coloured traffic areas can significantly reduce the surface temperature and overall temperature levels in urban areas, as illustrated by the example of Vienna, and improve the visibility of traffic participants at unchanged illumination levels at night. Whitetopping method is a simple and cost effective restoration method for improving the load bearing capacity and brightness characteristics of urban traffic zones. Model simulations of the air temperature over a 150 x 150 m homogeneous area with Whitetopping show that replacing asphalt roads with roads with a concrete topping, such as Whitetopping, with an albedo of 0.5 would lead to a daily air temperature reduction of approximately 1 degrees C in summer. These findings agree with results from literature. Since roads represent 10% of the total area of a city, efficient and long-term measures to improve the microclimate and facilitate further increase in traffic safety can be taken.