Use of solar heat-blocking pavement technology for mitigation of urban heat

In recent years, increased concern about global warming and climate change has made it desirable for roadwork engineers to tackle environmental issues. In addition, there are also concerns that the emerging environmental issue known as the “urban heat island” phenomena, which significantly affects pedestrians as well as asphalt surfaces, may be associated with paved roads in urban areas. In order to tackle this problem from a paving perspective, solar heat-blocking pavement technology was developed to achieve the following benefits: a reduction in surface temperature, and mitigation of urban heat. This paper describes the environmental and practical effects of this technology through its development and application, with the following conclusions being drawn from this study. With regard to the temperature, field results show that the reduction in surface temperature through use of the solar heat-blocking pavement is approximately 16°C. In terms of serviceability, its application to airport taxiways reveals that this technology effectively curtails rutting, since the rut depth is reduced to about half, compared to dense-graded asphalt surfaces. Finally, computer simulation results indicate that solar heat-blocking pavement is likely to be useful in mitigating the “urban heat island” effect, since atmospheric temperatures can be decreased by 0.8°C in urban areas.