Literature Review on Cool Pavement Research

This chapter summarizes an extensive literature on heat island effects and cool pavements to identify: potential technologies and strategies for cool pavements, key questions and what research has addressed them, and gaps in research and knowledge. Several potential strategies to make pavements cooler with various cooling mechanisms are summarized based on the review of existing research and literature. Economic analysis and environmental assessment are discussed, which should be performed over the entire life cycle of cool pavements with appropriate system boundaries to ensure a net benefit, both economically and environmentally. A number of major research and knowledge gaps regarding the environmental and engineering performance of cool pavements, as well as economic performance and implementation and policy issues, are identified from the literature review and summarized.