ANÁLISE BIBLIOMÉTRICA SOBRE APLICAÇÕES DO ÍNDICE DE CONFORTO TÉRMICO EM ESPAÇOS ABERTOS UTCI

Abstract

The outdoor comfort index UTCI (Universal Thermal Climate Index) has completed 10 years since its initial disclosure. Since then, there have been several applications of the index in the area called human biometeorology. The article presents a bibliometric analysis of peer-reviewed articles on UTCI, with a special focus on its applications. Searches in the Scopus and Web of Science databases were conducted in March 2021, resulting in 322 and 307 documents, respectively. The results were analyzed according to the subject area, source and country of origin of the documents. Using the VOSviewer tool, intended for bibliometric analyses, clusters were identified in the two databases from co-occurrences of author keywords. Such clusters corresponded to the main areas of application of the UTCI. The research output denotes an intrinsic multidisciplinary nature, but it is still concentrated in a few countries. While main applications are in human-centered studies and climate-responsive urban planning, potential areas of application of the index, such as meteorology and climate-related impacts in the health sector, still remain with a limited usage of the UTCI.