Heatwave Severity and Vulnerability Analysis based on Sensible Temperature Using Urban Big Data Considering Health Inequality

Abstract

The ability to deal with heatwaves varies depending on age and income. Even if people notice the danger, those who are vulnerable to heatwaves are not able to avoid it. Therefore, the public role is important for their health and life. In addition, considering the increase in heatwaves owing to climate change, the residential environment for vulnerable people needs to be improved. Then, which residential areas should be improved primarily? Are there areas with more severe heatwaves? How large is the difference between areas? Starting with these research questions, we analyzed the severity of heatwaves between residential areas in Seoul based on the summer of 2021. We then classified relatively high and low-temperature regions using space-time pattern mining. We identified hotspot areas that are physical, residential, and economically vulnerable to heatwaves and overlayed them with the classified temperature clusters to assess heatwave vulnerability in Seoul. Based on this assessment, we suggested areas that need priority in terms of improving the residential environment to resolve health inequality caused by heatwaves. We further established that there is a significant difference in the severity of heatwaves between residential areas, and the difference in sensible temperature was approximately 1.7 ℃ higher in the relatively high cluster than in the relatively low cluster. The novelty of this study lies in using sensible temperature, considering both location and time, and suggesting specific areas for improvement by using a higher resolution unit of analysis.