Impact of Street Greenery on Outdoor Thermal Comfort in the Context of Urban Microclimate of Dhaka City

Urban street vegetation influences several aspects such as environmental, aesthetic and thermal comfort of the users. This study focuses on the effect of street side flora on outdoor human thermal comfort (HTC). For this purpose, an experiment was conducted at four streets with similar geometrical configurations but different amounts of street vegetation and orientation in BUET campus, Dhaka, Bangladesh. The onsite climatic data were collected using data logger. Additionally, a qualitative study was conducted by semi-structured interviews with pedestrians to explore their perceptions of thermal comfort and aesthetic appreciation of street greenery. Finally, the thermal comfort level of those four streets were compared. The result shows that street greenery can reduce temperature and provide thermal comfort depending on the percentage of greenery, their geometry, coverage, canopy size placement and the current meteorological circumstances. According to the interviews, the amount of street vegetation seemed to be correlated with the instantaneous subjective thermal comfort. People placed a high aesthetic value on the presence of street plants. Lastly, some critical overviews and planning policies are recommended to enhance the applicability of this work practically. The study concludes that street vegetation functions as a feasible adaptation technique to provide aesthetically pleasing and thermally comfortable streetscapes in moderate climates.