Climate Justice in the City: Mapping Heat-Related Risk for Climate Change Mitigation of the Urban and Peri-Urban Area of Padua (Italy)

Abstract

The mitigation of urban heat islands (UHIs) is crucial for promoting the sustainable development of urban areas. Geographic information systems (GISs) together with satellite-derived data are powerful tools for investigating the spatiotemporal distribution of UHIs. Depending on the availability of data and the geographic scale of the analysis, different methodologies can be adopted. Here, we show a complete open source GIS-based methodology based on satellite-driven data for investigating and mapping the impact of the UHI on the heat-related elderly risk (HERI) in the Functional Urban Area of Padua. Thermal anomalies in the territory were mapped by modelling satellite data from Sentinel-3. After a socio-demographic analysis, the HERI was mapped according to five levels of risk. The highest vulnerability levels were localised within the urban area and in three municipalities near Padua, which represent about 20% of the entire territory investigated. In these municipalities, a percentage of elderly people over 20%, a thermal anomaly over 2.4 °C, and a HERI over 0.65 were found. Based on these outputs, it is possible to define nature-based solutions for reducing the UHI phenomenon and promote a sustainable development of cities. Stakeholders can use the results of these investigations to define climate and environmental policies.

Bridging the Gap: Matching Data from Low-Cost Mobile Sensors and Satellite for Urban Heat Island Research. A case study in Padua, Italy

“…NDVI is calculated from Landsat 8-9 bands 4 and 5 as described by Zanter (2018). The outcomes of these calculations yield two raster maps at a resolution of 30x30m, providing information on surface temperature and vegetation vigour within the municipality of Padua (Todeschi et al, 2022;Pappalardo et al, 2023).…”

“…NDVI is calculated from Landsat 8-9 bands 4 and 5 as described byZanter (2018). The outcomes of these calculations yield two raster maps at a resolution of 30x30m, providing information on surface temperature and vegetation vigour within the municipality of Padua(Todeschi et al, 2022;Pappalardo et al, 2023).2.2.4 Air Temperature and Land Cover:To better identify the role of vegetated impermeable surfaces in air temperature reduction, we analysed the distribution of temperature records for permeable and impermeable land use classes of CLC layerboth for afternoon and night datasets -by creating a violin plot chart. To continuously model the relationship between vegetation and air temperature, we conducted Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) modelling, correlating each air temperature record with the corresponding NDVI value of the pixel where the temperature was measured.2.2.5 Air Temperature and LST:Many authors investigated the correlation between air temperature and LST(Zhang et al, 2014;Tajfar et al, 2020;Urban et al, 2013), but none of them used a spatially continuous dataset of survey.…”

Mapping urban heatwaves and islands: the reverse effect of Salento’s “white cities”

“…From the surface data described in paragraph 2.3, this research focused on the area contained between two circumferences of radius 3 km and 6 km and centred in the geographical centre of Lecce. Within this region, the area was further refined to the only non-urbanised surfaces with their centre point at a minimum of 100 m away from every artificial surface (Todeschi et al, 2022b). The areas that satisfy this condition are then sampled at their centre point by calculating the temperature difference (∆LST) as the difference between the LST value from (Eq.…”

“…This temperature difference, known as the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect, affects urban climates through thermodynamic processes on urban boundary layers (Oke, 1978;Kim and Brown, 2021). The UHI effect is linked to factors such as: 1) the inner city's size and building types; 2) the size, typology, and distribution of green spaces; 3) the percentage of impermeable surfaces, urban morphology, and population density; 4) the city's geographical location, climatic conditions, and seasonal variations; 5) topographical features (Oke, 1982;Mohajerani et al, 2017;Sangiorgio et al, 2020;Todeschi et al, 2022a;Pappalardo et al, 2023).…”

Rethinking urban riparian ecosystems as a frontline strategy to counter climate change: mapping 60 years of carbon sequestration evolution in Padua, Italy

“…These areas are also of paramount importance as habitats for animal taxa, such as birds, reptiles, and amphibians (Naiman et al, 2005). Moreover, different sociocultural ESs are provided by these ecosystems, such as increasing recreation opportunities for outdoor activities and supplying leisure places, as well as environmental ES, for instance, temperature mitigation (Völker et al, 2013;Tuofu et al, 2021;Peroni et al, 2022;Todeschi et al, 2022;Pappalardo et al, 2023).…”