Research progress in thermal comfort assessment of urban green spaces based on scientific knowledge mapping technology

Urban green spaces are important places for human outdoor activities, and improving thermal comfort conditions in urban green spaces helps increase their utilization, thereby enhancing human health. This study analyzed the international research status and trends of thermal comfort assessments of urban green spaces using the information visualization analysis software CiteSpace 5.7.R1. The Web of Science Core Collection was used as a data resource; 2,078 records were analyzed from 2000 to 2020. The results reveal three outcomes: 1) the number of studies in this field has been increasing yearly since 2006, especially in the past three years; 2) in terms of quantity, the contributions of China and the United States rank first and second in the world; however, China has insufficient international research cooperation and relatively low cooperation among research institutions; and 3) the primary research focus areas in this field are energy efficiency, vegetation, landscape design, thermal comfort, computational fluid dynamics (CFD), and urban heat islands.