UrbAlytics - Remote Sensing tools for Urban Heat Island Assessment and Climate Change Adaptation through Nature-Based Solutions

Urban Heat Island (UHI) is considered one of the significant problems posed to human beings due to the urbanization and industrialization of human civilization. The leading causes of UHI are the vast amounts of heat urban structures produce as they absorb and re-radiate solar radiation and anthropogenic heat sources. The issue mainly affects cities or metropolises with a vast population and a thriving economy. The problem will worsen significantly in the future due to the predicted three billion people living in urban areas worldwide. Due to the severity of the problem, accessing up-to-date information layers that can support city planners and decision-makers in the context of climate resilience is a demanding problem nowadays.

UrbAlytics is an experimental sub-project of the H2020-funded project AI4Copernicus that aims to bridge Artificial Intelligence with Earth Observations, producing information layers that can support city planners and decision-makers in the context of climate resilience and related challenges in urban areas. This research investigates, thanks to the joint expertise of the partners Latitudo 40 and LAND Research Lab®, the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect, evaluating its impacts on cities, assessing Ecosystem Services provided by Blue and Green Infrastructures and proposing a set of Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) for climate adaptation and extreme heat mitigation. 

The dataset

This dataset is the tool's output of a fully automated workflow realized during the project and tested for the cities of Milan and Naples, pilot users of the experiment. The choice of Milan and Naples allows for different readiness levels, data availability, and urban-climatic conditions.
For each city, the dataset contains the following layers for the analysis period 2018-2022.

    HEATWAVE POTENTIAL RISK (HPR)

Risk Assessment mapping concerning extreme heat, considering the severity of the heat island phenomenons, the exposure of sensitive age groups and the vulnerability due to city morphology and surface materials. The risk assessment is the first step in defining a methodology that aims to assess the effectiveness of mitigation and adaptation strategies to climate extremes. It's a value in [0,1], where the higher the value higher the risk.

    MICROCLIMATIC PERFORMANCE INDEX (MPI)

The role of vegetation in the city in abating the Heat Island effect has been widely demonstrated. In this context, deploying Urban Green Infrastructure is recognized as one of the most important strategies to mitigate UHI and promote a resilient city environment. The significance of the mitigation role of the Heat Island phenomenon that vegetation assumes makes it necessary to map Urban Green Infrastructure to estimate a cooling potential. Estimating the microclimatic performance of urban vegetation is crucial to plan adaptation and mitigation actions for the UHI effect. In this work, up-to-date Tree Cover Density and Land Cover maps have been produced using machine learning applied to Sentinel-2 satellite imagery. Those maps have been interpolated and combined, creating 20 Blue and Green Infrastructures classes. Each category's microclimatic performance score was attributed based on evapotranspiration potential, shading and albedo. The output is a map with integer values in [1, 20], where the lower the value higher the microclimatic performance. 

    PARK COOL ISLANDS (PCI)

Park Cool Islands layer identifies the most performing areas during extreme summer heatwaves, according to their size and relevant characteristics, providing reliable information to citizens and urban planners about the safest and coolest areas during extreme heatwaves. Since the green areas' type and composition can influence their cooling effects, we considered both the size and composition of urban parks to identify the most performing green areas in terms of the Park Cool Island effect.  The layer distinguishes between major and minor Park Cool Islands. Major PCI includes areas covered by at least 50% of tree canopy coverage and bigger than 2 hectares with an estimated cooling distance of 300 m buffer. Minor PCI includes green areas whose surface is between 1 and 2 hectares as well as those green areas bigger than 2 hectares but covered by less than 50% of tree canopy coverage, with an estimated cooling distance of 100 m buffer.

Contact Information

If you would like further information about the dataset or if you experience any issues downloading files, please contact us giovanni.giacco@latitudo40.com, giulia.castellazzi@landsrl.com