App: Urban Heat Islands
Hosted in ArcGIS Online:
- Urban Heat Islands https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/e28f5e87b447480bbbeffe60bea1b3fd/
Mission Statement
According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, heat islands result primarily from urban infrastructure, such as buildings and roads, which absorb and re-emit the sun’s heat more significantly than natural landscapes like forests. This causes urban areas to have higher temperatures, hence the term “heat islands.” The urban heat island (UHI) effect, a direct consequence of expanding urbanization, is of growing concern across Canada. In 2021, close to three-quarters of Canadians resided in the nation’s large urban centres, indicating a significant trend towards urban living. This shift underscores the increasing importance of addressing the UHI effect. Urban areas, with their higher temperatures resulting from human activities, contrast sharply with their rural counterparts. Health Canada emphasizes that the UHI effect poses heightened heat-related health risks to a substantial portion of the Canadian population.
Our mission is to inform municipal governments, stakeholders, and organizations across Canada about how cities cause the urban heat island effect and assist them in implementing greener approaches to mitigate it. Besides using open data, the app also uses surface temperature, NDVI, and NDBI information based on Landsat imagery to provide justifiable and sophisticated answers to the urban heat island effect. Piloting in Montreal, Vancouver, and Halifax, our app gets straight into the specifics of tailoring the best overview of urban heat contributors and mitigators for each city.
Video Presentation
Documentation
Team Members
Megan MacDonald: I graduated from Dalhousie University in 2023 with a BSc Combined Honours in Earth Sciences and Physics. Some of my favourite courses were related to GIS and programming so I decided to pursue a graduate certificate in Geospatial Data Analytics at COGS. Outside of school I enjoy playing music, photography, hiking, and camping.
Mamadou Tiefin Coulibaly: Originally from Côte d'Ivoire, West Africa, I'm enhancing my GIS skills at COGS, building on my Master's in GIS and Remote Sensing and a Bachelor's degree in Earth Sciences. My passion for GIS and programming drives me to apply spatial analysis in addressing real-world challenges. I am fluent in multiple languages, adeptly navigating diverse settings, aiming to leverage GIS capabilities in a variety of projects. My hobbies, which include video games, reading, and soccer, keep me grounded and connected globally.
Kowin Chen: I am a student at NSCC COGS for the GIS Graduate Certificate program and I have a BA in Geography from McGill University. I took a few Computer Science, GIS, and Remote Sensing courses during my time at McGill and decided to pursue a GIS program at COGS to advance my technical skills and employability in the industry. So far I have enjoyed my time here at COGS, it was a definitely a unique opportunity to get away from the city life and I learned a lot from the courses I took. My hobbies include dragonboating and learning Cantonese!