Heat island mitigation using water retentive pavement sprinkled with reclaimed wastewater.

In Japan, reclaimed wastewater has been recycled widely for non-potable urban applications and it is to be used for sprinkling roads to mitigate heat island in urban areas. To assess the heat island mitigation effects of the sprinkling reclaimed wastewater on water retentive pavement, we carried out a survey at Shiodome-District, Tokyo. The temperatures of air and roads, humidity, and WBGT (Wet-bulb globe temperature) were measured and heat flux was estimated to compare the condition of the areas with/without sprinkling. The following results were obtained. 1) Sprinkling reclaimed wastewater decreased the road surface temperature by 8 degrees during the daytime and by 3 degrees at night: temperatures equal to those on planting zones. Nevertheless sprinkling was done only in the daytime, the temperature decrease effect was not only obtained during the daytime: it continued through the night, due to the water retentive pavement. 2) Sprinkling reclaimed wastewater reduced the amount of sensible heat flux and increased that of latent heat flux. These results suggest that sprinkling reclaimed wastewater on water retentive pavement can effectively mitigate the heat island phenomenon. Copyright IWA Publishing 2008.