Resilience Scanner

Urban Heat Response Data Platform

Solution Overview

City Tech Collaborative partnered with Microsoft, Esri, d3i Systems, and the City of Chicago to create a replicable, scalable study of urban heat spots over time and assessment of site-specific heat interventions through the Urban Heat Response project.[1] This initiative brings together a broad coalition of stakeholders to explore data-based approaches to mitigate the negative impacts of extreme heat events.[2] The approach makes weather and climate information based on NASA environmental data accessible through Esri's ArcGIS mapping and analytics platform hosted in Microsoft's Azure Cloud, enabling urban planners and municipal officials to measure the impact of heat interventions and plan effective, customized interventions for neighborhoods or even individual buildings using previously inaccessible data.[3]

Technical Components

The technology integrates advanced environmental data from NASA to quantify urban heat islands and assess urban heat reduction interventions.[3] NASA and Microsoft met with the City of Chicago, Esri, City Tech Collaborative, and D3i Systems to create this tool to incorporate advanced environmental data into urban design and infrastructure planning.[8] The urban heat visualizations are based on NASA satellite images that show heat concentrations and change over time, with satellites passing over a city two to three times per month providing approximately six images per summer.[6] The group explored several types of satellite data, but at 30 meters, Landsat had a finer resolution for capturing the urban heat interventions.[7] Through cutting-edge analytical power provided by Microsoft's Azure Cloud and mapping functionality provided by Esri's ArcGIS, NASA environmental data is incorporated into a visualization dashboard to provide deep insights to urban planners and government officials evaluating the need for and impact of urban green spaces and other mitigation measures used to manage urban hotspots.[8] More than 20,000 global cities use Esri's ArcGIS mapping and spatial analytics software, which provided an essential platform to host urban heat island assessment data.[1] d3i Systems' expertise in supercomputer-based research using advanced models of Earth's atmosphere, oceans, and land masses helped the team understand heat trends and the effect on the Earth's surface.[1] The team is investigating the potential benefits of using data collected via Chicago's Array of Things initiative—an urban measurement project comprised of hundreds of nodes installed around Chicago to collect real-time data on the city's environment, infrastructure, and activity.[8]

The City of Chicago partnered with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and CAPA Strategies on a community science heat mapping campaign to better understand how heat is distributed across Chicago.[4] On July 27th and 28th, 2023, 110 volunteers drove predetermined routes across the city, collecting temperature and humidity data using specially designed thermal sensors mounted to their vehicles.[4] The routes were designed to capture the diversity of land uses and land covers in Chicago, including parks, industrial corridors, and residential neighborhoods.[4] Data was collected in the morning, afternoon, and evening to capture the temperature fluctuations throughout the day.[4] During the three separate one-hour collection periods, volunteers collected 121,114 individual temperature and humidity measurements along 10 traverse routes.[4]

Implementation Details

The Urban Heat Response pilot project timeline is 1-5 years and is owned by City Tech Collaborative with partners including Microsoft, NASA, NOAA, ComEd, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Mayor's Office, OEMC, CDPH, DPD, DFSS, and MOPD.[2] In fall 2019, several groups came together for a pilot project to evaluate urban heat interventions, with the City of Chicago serving as the pilot city.[7] City Tech Collaborative managed the partnership and project, which also included Microsoft, with Azure cloud computing and other tools; Esri, with ArcGIS mapping and other software; and d3i Systems, with Earth observation research and expertise, including the use of Landsat data.[7] The prototype was slated for testing in Chicago in early 2020.[3][6] The partners, Microsoft, Esri, systems engineering and advanced analytics firm d3i Systems and the City of Chicago continued their work to devise the tool through the end of that year.[6]

Phase 1 of the pilot focused on use case definition, data gathering, and value definition to generate a detailed framework for implementation.[2] Phase 2 of the pilot committed to building a minimum viable product necessary to drive decision-making regarding future extreme heat episodes.[2] The COVID-19 pandemic delayed efforts to integrate urban heat island assessment into the ArcGIS mapping and analytics platform, but project participants are determined to expand access to this capability in the near future.[1] Once the heat mapping tool is live, it should be accessible to cities of all sizes because it will build on Esri software many urban planners already use.[6] Following the proof-of-concept period, the tool could be expanded to include any city for which satellite data is available.[6]

Benefits and Impacts

The average temperature differential between the warmest and coolest places in the city at the same time was 14.9°F.[4] The largest temperature differential was observed during the afternoon at 16.2°F.[4] Five of the intervention sites, including Millennium Park, had statistically significant decreases in surface temperature, while one had a gain in temperature.[7] On a hot day in August, a green roof located on the top of Chicago City Hall measured almost 80 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than the neighboring conventional roof.[5]

Urban planners, emergency management directors and local policymakers can use the data to identify urban hotspots and quantify the impact of urban heat interventions or land use policy changes.[6] The enhanced mapping and analytics capability allows stakeholders to zero in on past interventions such as tree planting and the creation of greens spaces and understand the impact on the surrounding climate over time.[5] These same planners and officials are able to quantify the heat reduction outcomes from previous interventions, transforming how the city plans and executes critical emergency response services.[8] The enhanced capability has the potential to quantify heat reduction efforts and transform how cities plan and execute critical emergency response services.[5] The pilot informs and improves decisions on near-term planning as well as long-term planning regarding infrastructure and resilience investments.[2]

The tool is scalable to other applications and other cities, with the potential to better inform how cities plan and implement future green spaces, cooling shelters, utility-sponsored programs for low-income customers, public health interventions, and weather-related emergency response, ensuring that resources get to the communities and populations that need them most.[8][5]

Climate Adaptation Relevance

Extreme heat events are responsible for more annual fatalities in the U.S. than any other form of extreme weather.[2] The Midwest heat waves of 1995 and 1999 together claimed more than 1,300 lives, with an estimated 739 in Chicago alone.[2] In July 1995, Chicago experienced a five-day streak of extreme heat resulting in over 700 heat-related deaths.[8] During past extreme heat events, Chicago's ability to respond has been hindered by its lack of available data, with present day challenges persisting due to gaps in data, isolated datasets, and other issues surrounding data accessibility.[2] City officials are working with NASA scientists to better understand the temporal and spatial evolution of the city's urban heat island.[3]

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