Zoe Hamstead - Using remote sensing and social data to link heat exposure and susceptibility in New York City

Authors

Zoe Hamstead - New School University, Carson Farmer (PhD) - University of Colorado Boulder, Timon McPhearson (PhD) - The New School

Body

As global temperatures rise, cities are experiencing increased frequency and intensity of heat waves, which are responsible for higher mortality rates than any other weather-related event. Exposure to heat - which can be driven by vegetation, built surfaces, waste heat and other factors – can vary widely across a city. Moreover, susceptibility to heat-related illness is related to many unevenly-distributed socio-economic risk factors, including age, income, race, ethnicity, disability, and other measures of mobility and social isolation. Resiliency and climate action planning efforts require baseline information about where vulnerability due to exposure may be compounded by susceptibility to heat-related illness. Thermal remote sensing provides a way to detect variation in micro-urban heat island and relate heat exposure to susceptibility. Through a case study of New York City, we illustrate a framework for analyzing vulnerability to health impacts of extreme heat events. By examining relationships between landscape compositions and surface temperature derived from the Landsat 7 ETM+ thermal band, we design a landscape-based indicator of heat exposure. We overlay this heat exposure indicator with a susceptibility index, developed using fine-scale dasymetric maps of demographic risk factors. We suggest that this approach can help facilitate Climate Action plans at both a citywide and neighborhood level, by identifying areas that are disproportionately exposed to dangerous temperatures, and are disproportionately at risk of suffering adverse health impacts of extreme heat events.

Sessions