EDI Development Environment
The regional heat vulnerability map and cooling solutions webtool offers two data sources for equitable heat mitigation. The dashboard layers vulnerability data onto land surface temperatures to identify areas with high and low heat exposure and vulnerability as well as the existing assets and nuisances in each census tract. Additional layers can be added into the heat vulnerability map to highlight how heat affects critical infrastructures including schools, mobile home parks, parking lots, public transportation stops, pedestrian thoroughfares, and bikeways. The solutions tab showcases a variety of heat mitigation solutions and the research behind them. Development of these solutions was funded through the Healthy Urban Environment Initiative. In addition, other heat-related solutions and resources from urban Maricopa County are included. The data catalogued here are the underlying data that populate the webtool.
HUE is a solutions-focused research, policy and technology incubator to create healthier communities across Maricopa County (central Arizona, USA) through collaboration between researchers, practitioners and community members. As such, HUE funded rapid development, testing and deployment of heat-mitigation and air-quality improvement strategies and technologies.
Heat emerged as the urgent focus, as urban centers across the desert Southwest continue to grow in size and density, aggravating existing challenges posed by the expansion of the built environment. In Phoenix, AZ, this expansion of the built environment creates conditions which magnify the intensity and duration of heat – making it difficult for residents to achieve thermal comfort throughout the day and night. Further, the legacies of urban sprawl and transportation planning in the Phoenix, Arizona metropolitan area have contributed to challenges with atmospheric pollutants. Importantly, urban heat and air quality issues intersect to produce negative health incomes that impact the region’s communities, particularly those who are most vulnerable and least able to adapt.
This work was funded as part of the Healthy Urban Environments (HUE) initiative by the Maricopa County Industrial Development Authority (MCIDA), Award #AWD00033817. This funding facilitated collaboration between the City of Tempe, the Decision Theater at Arizona State University (ASU) and ASU researchers to build an interactive webtool to assist local municipalities, nonprofits, community members, researchers, and other stakeholders in understanding heat, vulnerabilities, and solutions to heat in urban Maricopa County region.
