Leveraging an Urban Environmental Sensing Network to Improve Extreme Heat Resilience : Invited Paper

As the global population continues to urbanize, city residents are increasingly exposed to extreme heat due to the urban heat island phenomenon, which poses a serious threat to human health. Understanding heat exposure in urban areas is challenging due to the heterogeneity of urban form and land uses, which create micro-climates that expose individuals to a wide variation of temperatures in outdoor environments. To address this issue, we have deployed a sensor network throughout the city of Bloomington, Indiana and on the campus of Indiana University. The environmental sensor network includes air temperature, relative humidity, and soil moisture sensors in different urban-forms such as along streets, among densely clustered trees, in parking lots, and in community gardens. The sensor network captures a rich set of data related to local climate, heat exposure, and vegetative heat stress. Local environmental monitoring is an important area of research that enables researchers to more precisely predict and quantify an individuals’ exposure to extreme heat in urban environments. In this paper, we describe the application of our environmental sensor network, the Healthy Cities Sensor Network (HCSN) and how it can be utilized to increase climate resilience for local communities.