The Role of Urban Greenery in Enhancing Thermal Comfort: Systematic Review Insights

As cities grapple with rising temperatures, the integration of urban greenery has gained recognition as a viable solution to mitigate these effects and enhance outdoor thermal conditions. This paper identifies widely used and emerging numerical models, highlights research gaps, and addresses key insights from the selected literature. Grounded in a PRISMA-based review, it offers insights to optimize strategies for mitigating urban heat islands and enhancing livability. The study explores synergies and trade-offs between green infrastructure and the built environment, aiming to provide insights into optimizing these elements for sustainable urban development. In this research, a mixed-methods approach was adopted by combining a systematic review and a bibliometric review using the PRISMA 2020 and VOSviewer 1.6.19 of 48 relevant studies. The PRISMA process led to the selection of the papers used for both the qualitative synthesis and bibliometric analysis. The results indicate a significant increase in research output in the last decades with a marked focus on green roofs, urban parks, and vertical greening systems. Our findings provide an elaborate conceptual framework that maps the interrelation between the research topics. Also, the study highlights existing research gaps in numerical modeling software for evaluating the cooling potential of urban greenery and its impact on thermal comfort across diverse urban contexts. The study recommends developing standardized frameworks and metrics for evaluating thermal comfort in urban areas, as well as suggesting that advancing numerical modeling software is essential to accurately simulate the complex interactions between urban greenery, microclimates, and urban forms.