Nowadays, researchers are trying hard to minimize the harmful effect of infrastructure development on the environment and ecosystem. The conversion of natural landscapes to manmade structures has increased urban temperature. The increased urban temperature leads to the urban heat island (UHI) effect, which adversely affects the livability of the cities. Past studies have proven that pavement temperature has a strong influence on the surrounding air temperature. As the pavement surfaces cover a significant part of the urban fabric, a reduced pavement temperature will contribute towards the UHI mitigation efforts. Moreover, a reduction in pavement temperature will decrease the thermal distress in concrete and asphalt pavements and will increase the pavement life. Hence, cool pavement technologies such as reflective and evaporative pavements have been introduced. Even though they were effective in reducing pavement temperature, they had several limitations such as glaring issues and low durability. This review paper mainly focuses on the limitations of conventional cool pavement technologies and the recent developments to overcome these limitations. Emerging cool pavement technologies like retro-reflective pavements, evaporation enhancing pavements, drainable water-retaining pavements, unidirectional heat-transfer pavements, phase change materials (PCM) incorporated pavements, etc., are discussed in detail. Since most of these emerging technologies are at the early stage of development and have not been reviewed yet, the current review will act as a foundation for future developments in this field.

Prasenjit Rath (School of Mechanical Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology)

B.R. Anupam, Umesh Chandra Sahoo, Anush K. Chandrappa, Prasenjit Rath, Emerging technologies in cool pavements: A review, Construction and Building Materials, Volume 299, 2021, 123892, ISSN 0950-0618, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2021.123892.