Precast Concrete Pavements of High Albedo to Achieve the Net “Zero-Emissions” Commitments
Publicated to:Applied Sciences-Basel. 12 (4): - 2022-01-01 12(4), DOI: 10.3390/app12041955
Authors: Sanjuán MÁ; Morales Á; Zaragoza A
Affiliations
Abstract
Pavements store heat, which is subsequently released into the atmosphere, heating the surrounding air. Therefore, this process contributes to climate change and global warming. For this reason, the use of high-solar-reflectance (albedo) pavements is seen as one of the potential mitigation methods for climate change. Concrete pavements have a much higher albedo than asphalt due to their light gray color compared with black pavements. Accordingly, the widespread utilization of highly reflective concrete pavements will improve local climate change mitigation. Nevertheless, concrete albedo slightly decreases over time because of weathering. Albedo and solar reflectance index (SRI) measurements were taken on actual precast concrete pavements made with different mixes. The methodology applied for this project is based on the comparison between the asphalt and concrete pavements’ reflectivity. Conventional concrete mix designs can provide cool pavements with SRI higher than 29. Replacement of black pavements by highly reflective concrete pavements appeared to be a cost-effective and easily implemented measure to combat climate change. Finally, multidisciplinary studies considering factors such as building materials’ albedo, among other mitigation measures, should be performed to provide more precise and reliable guidance to policymakers, stakeholders, decision makers and urban planners. © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
Keywords
Quality index
Bibliometric impact. Analysis of the contribution and dissemination channel
The work has been published in the journal Applied Sciences-Basel due to its progression and the good impact it has achieved in recent years, according to the agency WoS (JCR), it has become a reference in its field. In the year of publication of the work, 2022, it was in position 42/90, thus managing to position itself as a Q2 (Segundo Cuartil), in the category Engineering, Multidisciplinary. Notably, the journal is positioned en el Cuartil Q2 para la agencia Scopus (SJR) en la categoría Engineering (Miscellaneous).
From a relative perspective, and based on the normalized impact indicator calculated from World Citations from Scopus Elsevier, it yields a value for the Field-Weighted Citation Impact from the Scopus agency: 1.6, which indicates that, compared to works in the same discipline and in the same year of publication, it ranks as a work cited above average. (source consulted: ESI Nov 14, 2024)
This information is reinforced by other indicators of the same type, which, although dynamic over time and dependent on the set of average global citations at the time of their calculation, consistently position the work at some point among the top 50% most cited in its field:
- Field Citation Ratio (FCR) from Dimensions: 5.17 (source consulted: Dimensions Jun 2025)
Specifically, and according to different indexing agencies, this work has accumulated citations as of 2025-06-13, the following number of citations:
- Scopus: 15
- OpenCitations: 10
Impact and social visibility
Leadership analysis of institutional authors
There is a significant leadership presence as some of the institution’s authors appear as the first or last signer, detailed as follows: Last Author (ZARAGOZA RAMIREZ, ANICETO).