Mapping Heat Vulnerability Index Based on Different Urbanization Levels in Nebraska, USA

Extreme heat is the leading cause of heat-related mortality around the world. Extracting heat vulnerability information from the urban complexity system is crucial for urban health studies. Using heat vulnerability index (HVI) is the most common approach for urban planners to locate the places with high vulnerability for intervention and protection. Previous studies have demonstrated that HVI can play a vital role in determining which areas are at risk of heat-related deaths. Both equal weight approach (EWA) and principal component analysis (PCA) are the conventional methods to aggregate indicators to HVI. However, seldom studies have compared the differences between these two approaches in estimating HVI. In this paper, we evaluated the HVIs in Hangzhou in 2013, employing EWA and PCA, and assessed the accuracies of these two HVIs by using heat-related deaths. Our results show that both HVI maps showed that areas with high vulnerability are located in the central area while those with low vulnerability are located in the suburban area. The comparison between HVIEWA and HVIPCA shows significantly different spatial distributions, which is caused by the various weight factors in EWA and PCA. The relationship between HVIEWA and heat-related deaths performs better than the relationship between HVIPCA and deaths, implying EWA could be a better method to evaluate heat vulnerability than PCA. The HVIEWA can provide a spatial distribution of heat vulnerability at intracity to direct heat adaptation and emergency capacity planning.

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A Heat Vulnerability Index: Spatial Patterns of Exposure, Sensitivity and Adaptive Capacity for Urbanites of Four Cities of India

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health ◽

10.3390/ijerph19010283 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 19 (1) ◽

pp. 283

Author(s):

Suresh Kumar Rathi ◽

Soham Chakraborty ◽

Saswat Kishore Mishra ◽

Ambarish Dutta ◽

Lipika Nanda

Keyword(s):

Adaptive Capacity ◽

Heat Waves ◽

Vulnerability Index ◽

Extreme Heat ◽

Cross Sectional ◽

Great Loss ◽

Household Vulnerability ◽

Heat Vulnerability ◽

Heat Vulnerability Index ◽

The Impact

Extreme heat and heat waves have been established as disasters which can lead to a great loss of life. Several studies over the years, both within and outside of India, have shown how extreme heat events lead to an overall increase in mortality. However, the impact of extreme heat, similar to other disasters, depends upon the vulnerability of the population. This study aims to assess the extreme heat vulnerability of the population of four cities with different characteristics across India. This cross-sectional study included 500 households from each city across the urban localities (both slum and non-slum) of Ongole in Andhra Pradesh, Karimnagar in Telangana, Kolkata in West Bengal and Angul in Odisha. Twenty-one indicators were used to construct a household vulnerability index to understand the vulnerability of the cities. The results have shown that the majority of the households fell under moderate to high vulnerability level across all the cities. Angul and Kolkata were found to be more highly vulnerable as compared to Ongole and Karimnagar. Further analysis also revealed that household vulnerability is more significantly related to adaptive capacity than sensitivity and exposure. Heat Vulnerability Index can help in identifying the vulnerable population and scaling up adaptive practices.

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