Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect is the phenomena of a cities buildings and surfaces reacting to the suns heat and causing parts of the community to heat-up to temperatures above and beyond acceptable for its citizens. Governments at national and local level are required to adapt and respond to current and future climate impacts in order to manage risks to service delivery, the public, communities, infrastructure, businesses and the natural environment.
Elevated temperature from urban heat islands, particularly during the summer, can affect a community's environment and quality of life. Bluesky have recently completed a project in Dubai as part of the municipality's Urban Heat Island map. View the full video on the right.
Locating, measuring and detecting UHI phenomena are problematic. Ground-level measurements are time-consuming, labour-intensive and costly. A contiguous 'snapshot' of surface emmissivity is required to provide a true picture of which parts of the city are overheated. Previously, multi-spectral bands from satellite imagery have been used to measure UHI effect, however this imagery lacks the spatial detail to pick out UHI at a local level holding back planners and energy professionals when making key green-planning decisions at community level.
All Bluesky Urban Heat Island Maps are supplied in GIS format for analysing alongside existing topographical and community information. This enables cross-referencing with existing digital addresses, topographical mapping and existing colour aerial imagery data.
These datasets may then be queried and exploited in order to discover trends and patterns in energy use, ultimately providing a list building addresses within the target area may be eligible for brokered 'hands-on' support.
