IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v18y2021i5p2535-d510214.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Thermal Discomfort Levels, Building Design Concepts, and Some Heat Mitigation Strategies in Low-Income Communities of a South Asian City

Author

Listed:
  • Sana Ehsan

    (Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Government College University Faisalabad, Faisalabad 38000, Pakistan)

  • Farhat Abbas

    (Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Government College University Faisalabad, Faisalabad 38000, Pakistan
    School of Climate Change and Adaptation, University of Prince Edward Island, Charlottetown, PE C1A 4P3, Canada)

  • Muhammad Ibrahim

    (Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Government College University Faisalabad, Faisalabad 38000, Pakistan)

  • Bashir Ahmad

    (Climate Energy and Water Research Institute, Pakistan Agricultural Research Council, Islamabad 44000, Pakistan)

  • Aitazaz A. Farooque

    (School of Climate Change and Adaptation, University of Prince Edward Island, Charlottetown, PE C1A 4P3, Canada
    Faculty of Sustainable Design Engineering, University of Prince Edward Island, Charlottetown, PE C1A 4P3, Canada)

Abstract

Heat stress provokes thermal discomfort to people living in semiarid and arid climates. This study evaluates thermal discomfort levels, building design concepts, and some heat mitigation strategies in low-income neighborhoods of Faisalabad, Pakistan. The outdoor and indoor weather data are collected from April to August 2016 using a weather station installed ad hoc in urban settings, and the 52 houses of the five low-income participating communities living in congested and less environment-friendly areas of Faisalabad. The discomfort index values, related to the building design concepts, including (i) house orientation to sunlight and (ii) house ventilation, are calculated from outdoor and indoor dry-bulb and wet-bulb temperatures. Our results show that although June was the hottest month of summer 2016, based on the monthly mean temperature of the Faisalabad region, the month of May produced the highest discomfort levels, which were higher in houses exposed to sunlight and without ventilation. The study also identifies some popular heat mitigation strategies adopted by the five participating low-income communities during various heat-related health complaints. The strategies are gender-biased and have medical, cultural/customary backgrounds. For example, about 52% of the males and 28% of the females drank more water during dehydration, diarrhea, and eye infection. Over 11% and 19% of the males and females, respectively, moved to cooler places during fever. About 43% of the males and 51% of the females took water showers and rested to combat flu (runny nose), headache, and nosebleed. The people did not know how to cure muscular fatigue, skin allergy (from a type of Milia), and mild temperature. Planting trees in an area and developing open parks with greenery and thick canopy trees can be beneficial for neighborhoods resembling those evaluated in this study.

Suggested Citation

  • Sana Ehsan & Farhat Abbas & Muhammad Ibrahim & Bashir Ahmad & Aitazaz A. Farooque, 2021. "Thermal Discomfort Levels, Building Design Concepts, and Some Heat Mitigation Strategies in Low-Income Communities of a South Asian City," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(5), pages 1-18, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:5:p:2535-:d:510214
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/5/2535/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/5/2535/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Boris Kingma & Wouter van Marken Lichtenbelt, 2015. "Energy consumption in buildings and female thermal demand," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 5(12), pages 1054-1056, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Yuehong Qiu & Zeming Deng & Chujuan Jiang & Kaigong Wei & Lijun Zhu & Jieting Zhang & Can Jiao, 2022. "The Associations of Meteorological and Environmental Factors with Memory Function of the Older Age in Urban Areas," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(9), pages 1-14, April.
    2. Wang, Zhe & Hong, Tianzhen, 2020. "Learning occupants’ indoor comfort temperature through a Bayesian inference approach for office buildings in United States," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    3. Tom Y Chang & Agne Kajackaite, 2019. "Battle for the thermostat: Gender and the effect of temperature on cognitive performance," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(5), pages 1-10, May.
    4. Robert C. Vella & Francisco Javier Rey Martinez & Charles Yousif & Liberato Camilleri, 2021. "Thermal Comfort in Places of Worship within a Mediterranean Climate," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(13), pages 1-26, June.
    5. Long, Ruyin & Wang, Jiaqi & Chen, Hong & Li, Qianwen & Wu, Meifen & Tan-Soo, Jie-Sheng, 2023. "Applying multilevel structural equation modeling to energy-saving behavior: The interaction of individual- and city-level factors," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 174(C).
    6. Katarzyna Gładyszewska-Fiedoruk & Maria Jolanta Sulewska, 2020. "Thermal Comfort Evaluation Using Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) and Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs)," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(3), pages 1-15, January.
    7. Brewer, Dylan, 2022. "Equilibrium sorting and moral hazard in residential energy contracts," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    8. Marie Davidová & Shanu Sharma & Dermott McMeel & Fernando Loizides, 2022. "Co-De|GT: The Gamification and Tokenisation of More-Than-Human Qualities and Values," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-20, March.
    9. repec:cup:judgdm:v:16:y:2021:i:3:p:766-795 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Martijn Stroom & Nils Kok & Martin Strobel & Piet M. A. Eichholtz, 2021. "Turning up the heat: The impact of indoor temperature on selected cognitive processes and the validity of self-report," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 16(3), pages 766-795, May.
    11. Guo, Hongshan & Luo, Yongqiang & Meggers, Forrest & Simonetti, Marco, 2019. "Human body exergy consumption models’ evaluation and their sensitivities towards different environmental conditions," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 1075-1088.
    12. Juan Palacios & Piet Eichholtz & Nils Kok, 2020. "Moving to productivity: The benefits of healthy buildings," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(8), pages 1-17, August.
    13. Vicente López-Chao & Antonio Amado Lorenzo & Jorge Martin-Gutiérrez, 2019. "Architectural Indoor Analysis: A Holistic Approach to Understand the Relation of Higher Education Classrooms and Academic Performance," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(23), pages 1-15, November.
    14. Lu, Ding & Liu, Zijian & Bai, Yin & Cheng, Rui & Gong, Maoqiong, 2022. "Study on the multi-energy complementary absorption system applied for combined cooling and heating in cold winter and hot summer areas," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 312(C).
    15. Brewer, Dylan, 2023. "Household responses to winter heating costs: Implications for energy pricing policies and demand-side alternatives," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 177(C).
    16. Bin Yang & Tze-Huan Lei & Pengfei Yang & Kaixuan Liu & Faming Wang, 2021. "On the Use of Wearable Face and Neck Cooling Fans to Improve Occupant Thermal Comfort in Warm Indoor Environments," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(23), pages 1-15, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:5:p:2535-:d:510214. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.