Climatic and thermal comfort research orientations in outdoor spaces: From 1999 to 2017 in Iran

The satisfaction level with an environment differs among individuals caused by social, psychological and physical factors. One of the environmental factors affecting physical and mental satisfaction is the space thermal condition. In recent years, the importance of thermal comfort has been accentuated due to the climate change and global warming. The objective of the present s tudy is to identify the main concepts raised in Iran outdoor thermal comfort by s tudying and classifying the s tudies in this field to identify the characteris tics of each category. Thus, this s tudy reviews 142 papers written in Iran published in the period between 1999 and 2017. The papers are firs t classified into two main categories (including fundamental s tudies on thermal comfort and practical s tudies) and three secondary categories that are subsets of the second main category (macroscale, mesoscale, and microscale s tudies). Each category is then s tudied and analyzed in more details according to the regions and climates considered, methodology and research means, effective factors and thermal indices used for evaluation. Accordingly, s trengths and weaknesses of previous s tudies are identified and sugges tions for future s tudies on the microclimate scale have been made. Eventually, the conceptual model of thermal comfort s tudies is presented in different climatic scales.