burden of chronic diseases. Other benefits include enabling the increased use of greener modes of transport, such as cycling and walking.
To improve the environmental quality and design of open spaces, it is critical to evaluate individuals' perception of environmental conditions, in particular microclimate, noise and air quality. Such knowledge also can be used to induce environmentally sustainable behaviour. Understanding the human assessment of air quality will allow the development of targeted outreach campaigns by local authorities and policy makers to protect the population from such exposure, as recent studies found that air quality advisories for the public were not effective in changing individuals' behaviour, even in severe air quality episodes. Behaviour change was predominantly motivated by perception of the environmental conditions and not the advisory system (Semenza et al., 2008).