Research on Spatial Equity of Urban Residential Areas and Its Association with Summer Thermal Environment Risk: A Case Study of Wuhan, China

As global warming intensifies and extreme heat events occur frequently, the human thermal environment is under severe threat. In this study, the thermal environment risk and spatial equity issues in residential areas of humid and hot summer cities have become increasingly prominent. This study assesses summer thermal environment risk in Wuhan’s central urban area—one of China’s four “Furnace Cities”—from a spatial equity perspective, using the factors from the IPCC Hazard–Exposure–Vulnerability framework. Factor weights were determined through questionnaire surveys and the entropy weight method. Calculation and analysis were conducted on the Open Geospatial Engine (OGE) based on weighted scores. Results show that Wuhan’s main urban area faces considerable thermal stress, with high-temperature zones highly overlapping with densely populated old residential neighborhoods. Building height follows a concentric “high-center, low-periphery” pattern, while housing prices decline along a center-edge gradient; mid-to-low price ranges exceed 90%, indicating limited thermal adaptive capacity among most residents. Although high-density areas account for only approximately 2.7%, they concentrate in high-risk zones such as core Hankou. Comprehensive assessment reveals a “central aggregation, riverside mitigation” risk pattern. Located in Hankou, Hanzheng Street, suffering from extreme heat, dense buildings, crowded residents, and low-quality housing, has the highest heat risk and the worst unequal spatial environment across the city. This study reveals thermal risk disparities in Wuhan’s central urban area and provides a scientific basis for formulating equitable and effective thermal environment risk mitigation strategies.