Name: TATIANA CAMELLO XAVIER
Publication date: 06/04/2026
Examining board:
Name |
Role |
|---|---|
| EBERVAL MARCHIORO | Examinador Interno |
| EDSON SOARES FIALHO | Presidente |
| ERCÍLIA TORRES STEINKE | Examinador Externo |
| VINÍCIUS MACHADO ROCHA | Examinador Externo |
| WESLEY DE SOUZA CAMPOS CORREA | Examinador Interno |
Summary: As natural environments are progressively replaced by urban structures, new materials are
introduced, new activities emerge, and the local configuration changes, resulting in a new
climatic setting and different thermal sensations for urban inhabitants. Urban planning guides
the growth of cities in order to promote balanced development; however, it still presents
limitations regarding the understanding and application of bioclimatic strategies. Human
thermal comfort occurs when no additional effort is required from the thermoregulatory system
to maintain the internal body temperature, that is, when the human body is in thermal
equilibrium. Understanding the agents that influence urban dynamics, along with their
particularities and climatic behavior, can contribute to establishing guidelines aimed at
improving population well-being, mitigating the impacts of climate changes arising from both
natural and anthropogenic factors. Several thermal comfort indices have been developed to
evaluate human thermal sensation. Although widely used and useful, some of these indices
present classification ranges that do not accurately represent the thermal perception of
populations in different regions of Brazil. In this context, the objective of this research was to
evaluate the adequacy of Thom’s Discomfort Index (IDT) and the Temperature and Humidity
Index (ITU) within a humid tropical climate, through the comparison between their
classifications and the thermal perception reported by users of urban spaces. To achieve this,
the study combined microclimatic measurements and questionnaire surveys conducted in a
coastal city characterized by a humid tropical climate: Serra, Espírito Santo, Brazil. The results
confirmed the hypothesis that the classical thresholds of these indices, when directly applied to
the local context, are misaligned with the adaptive thermal patterns of the population, thus
requiring parametric recalibration to better represent the actual thermal experience. The
findings indicate that the IDT and ITU indices are conceptually applicable to humid tropical
climates, provided that their thresholds are adjusted based on local empirical evidence. The
identified limitation lies not in the mathematical formulation of the indices, but rather in the
universalization of their classification thresholds. The direct application of limits developed
under different climatic conditions tends to overestimate thermal discomfort in populations
adapted to heat. In summary, this thesis demonstrates that the use of classical thermal comfort
indices in humid tropical climates is both viable and scientifically valid, provided that it is
accompanied by local empirical validation and evidence-based parametric adjustment. It is also
important to highlight the structural limitations of these indices in relation to cold conditions,
since they are formulated exclusively to measure heat-related discomfort and do not account
for negative thermal extremes.
