Impact of cool materials on urban heat islands and on buildings comfort and energy consumption

"The urban heat island affects our cities and results in. warmer climates in urban areas, as compared to. surrounding rural areas. One solution involves the. use of materials with high solar reflectance and far-infrared thermal emissivity, or “Cool Materials”. Usually cool. materials are used to decrease heat flow entering in a building. But, being their surface temperatures much lower than those of typical building materials, if. used on an urban scale, they lead to a lower heat exchange. between air and surfaces, helping to decrease the air. temperature of the urban environment. The paper reports. the results of a study carried out on a densely populated area of Rome. The study is divided into four parts. a. measure of the urban heat island, comparing temperatures in urban and rural sites; b. analysis of cooling demand of a typical apartment, in rural and urban area; c. thermal. properties of cool asphalts; d. analysis of the urban heat. island, comparing outdoor air temperatures of an area. before and after the adoption of cool materials. The. results demonstrate the significant influence of cool. materials on the reduction of heat island effect.