Document Type

Article

Publication Date

12-12-2025

Publication Title

Infrastructures

Volume

10

Issue

12

First page number:

1

Last page number:

18

Abstract

The urban heat island (UHI) effect is one of the most pressing challenges associated with rapid urbanization. It arises primarily from the replacement of natural vegetation with impervious surfaces, alterations in surface energy balance, and heat emissions from human activity. Mitigating these drivers has become a global priority, particularly in fast-growing cities. Pavements play a central role in UHI intensification due to their large surface coverage, low albedo, and capacity to retain heat. This study adopts a bibliometric approach to systematically map the knowledge structure and research trends in pavement-related UHI studies. A dataset of 834 publications from Web of Science was analyzed using VOSviewer to identify leading countries and journals, central publications, the temporal evolution of research themes, and the thematic structure of the field. The analysis revealed three dominant themes: (1) pavement materials and their properties, (2) mitigation strategies that prevent UHI, and (3) cooling interventions to mitigate UHI. This study attempts to provide a comprehensive overview of the field and to clarify its interdisciplinary connections with climate adaptation and sustainability discourse.

Keywords

urban heat island; pavement; heat island mitigation; microclimate; bibliometric

Disciplines

Environmental Design | Urban, Community and Regional Planning

File Format

PDF

File Size

6400 KB

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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