Emergence of Urban Heat Traps from the Intersection of Human Mobility and Heat Hazard Exposure in Cities

Huang, Xinke; Jiang, Yuqin; Mostafavi, Ali

doi:10.2139/ssrn.4341768

Cited by 1 publication

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References 39 publications

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“…Evaluating and monitoring environmental hazards and their impact on human populations have been the subject of numerous studies in recent years. Traditional methods for assessing hazards and populations exposure have been primarily focused on the place of residence, using empirical models, environmental data from sensors, and spatial analysis techniques to estimate hazard concentrations in different areas of a city. − Researchers have proposed various indicators to quantify the extent of environmental hazards and risks of communities. For instance, researchers have estimated PM2.5 exposure by assigning emissions from industrial facilities to nearby census block groups and then incorporating this pollutant into calculations of the burden on racial groups and poverty status according to their residence locations. , Likewise, heat vulnerability indices (HVI) have been developed to assess heat risk at specific locations based on the populations’ social–economic factors, land cover type, and green space .…”

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confidence: 99%

Beyond Residence: A Mobility-based Approach for Improved Evaluation of Human Exposure to Environmental Hazards

Liu,

Mostafavi

2023

Environ. Sci. Technol.

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Standard environmental hazard exposure assessment methods have been primarily based on residential places, neglecting individuals’ hazard exposures due to activities outside home neighborhood and underestimating peoples’ overall hazard exposures. To address this limitation, this study proposes a novel mobility-based index for the hazard exposure evaluation. Using large-scale human mobility data, we quantify the extent of population dwell time in high environmental hazard places in 239 US counties for three environmental hazards. We explore how human mobility extends the reach of environmental hazards and leads to the emergence of latent exposure for populations living outside high-hazard areas. Notably, neglect of mobility can lead to over 10% underestimation of hazard exposures. The interplay of spatial clustering in high-hazard regions and human movement trends creates “environmental hazard traps.” Poor and ethnic minority residents disproportionately face multiple types of environmental hazards. This data-driven evidence supports the severity of these injustices. We also studied latent exposure arising from visits outside residents’ home areas, revealing millions of the population having 5 to 10% of daily activities occur in high-exposure zones. Despite living in perceived safe areas, human mobility could expose millions of residents to different hazards. These findings provide crucial insights for targeted policies to mitigate these severe environmental injustices.

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