Urban thermal comfort: proposed questionnaire to evaluate its social perception (Q-CTUp) / Confort térmico urbano: propuesta de un cuestionario para medir su percepción social (Q-CTUp)

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to design and validate a questionnaire to evaluate, from the perspective of the pedestrian, urban thermal comfort, as a specific case of environmental experience. The information gathered through the questionnaire could complement microclimate measurements, which in themselves are insufficient to predict the comfort of people in open urban spaces. The consideration of both perspectives will give better support to technicians and managers in urban planning to cope with twenty-first century challenges related to climate change and planet urbanization. The questionnaire was validated by means of a climate action campaign, in which it was applied to a large representative sample of users of an urban environment. The results indicate that the questionnaire has proved valid to evaluate the urban thermal comfort of pedestrians, which depends more on the variables pertaining to the person and the activity than on objective microclimatic parameters. However, the authors feel the need for further progress in this new field.