Explicit Spatializing Heat-Exposure Risk and Local Associated Factors by coupling social media data and automatic...

Area of Science:

• Environmental Health
• Urban Planning
• Public Health

Background:

• Extreme high temperatures are increasing in frequency and intensity, posing significant weather-related public health risks.
• Effective and low-cost risk assessment methods are crucial for mitigating the adverse impacts of extreme heat events.
• Existing methods may lack the spatiotemporal resolution needed for targeted interventions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a high spatiotemporal resolution temperature risk assessment method.
• To integrate automatic meteorological station data with population mobility data for enhanced accuracy.
• To identify high-temperature risk areas and influencing factors for developing mitigation strategies.

Main Methods:

• Applied automatic meteorological station data and population mobility data to create a high-resolution (100m) temperature risk assessment.
• Analyzed population mobility patterns to understand working/residential complexes and identify spatial clustering hotspots.
• Utilized the geographically weighted regression model to investigate factors influencing heat exposure distribution.

Main Results:

• The developed method identified high-temperature risk areas, with over 36% of total mortality occurring in these zones.
• Key risk areas were concentrated in the southwest of the study area, with peak risks before dawn and in the evening.
• Individual factors explained over 22.4% of heat exposure spatial distribution, with services (catering, transportation, living) being significant; joint factors explained over 47.9%.

Conclusions:

• The introduced spatial-specific method effectively quantifies high-temperature risk, considering population mobility.
• Understanding the mechanisms behind spatial heat risk distribution is vital for urban planning and public health.
• Findings provide theoretical and management implications for urban designers and energy governors to develop heat mitigation strategies.