Determinants of subjective outdoor thermal comfort in an urban historic and cultural heritage landscape in Xi’an, China

ABSTRACT

In this study, we investigated factors related to subjective outdoor thermal comfort in the Ancient Ming Dynasty Walled City in Xi’an, China. Environmental data were collected from study sites by microclimate monitoring. Survey locations, demographics, psychological characteristics, thermal sensation vote (TSV), and thermal comfort vote (TCV) data were collected from 639 individuals in a questionnaire survey. Generalized linear regression analysis and path analysis were used to understand the associations between the TSV, environmental and psychological factors, and TCV. We found that green space locations, higher age, and greater subjective well-being and environmental satisfaction were associated with increased TCV. The universal thermal climate index was associated with TCV, and this association could have been affected by the individual’s psychological state. Our findings suggest that environmental factors and psychological factors had non-negligible effects on the subjective thermal comfort of individuals located in an open urban area with historical and cultural significance.

KEYWORDS:

• Ancient city wall
• Heritage buildings
• Historic urban landscape
• Outdoor thermal environment
• Thermal comfort

Acknowledgements

We thank Zikai Yao for translating the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/09603123.2023.2297718

Data availability statement

The data was collected by experienced scientists and health personnel. The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Authors’ contributions

Bin Yu Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Writing- Original draft preparation. Shujuan Yang: Conceptualization, Writing- Reviewing and Editing. Meng Zhen: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation, Data curation, Writing- Reviewing and Editing, Supervision.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2023YFC3604702; 2023YFC3604701); Natural Science Foundation of Shaanxi Province (2021JM-013) Natural Science Foundation of Shaanxi Province (2023-JC-YB-316).