High land surface temperatures (LSTs) disproportionately affect vulnerable socioeconomic groups in Barranquilla, Colombia

Abstract

Temperatures in urban areas usually exhibit distinct spatial patterns and disproportionately affect lower-income communities as they are frequently located in warmer neighborhoods. Our study focuses on the urban area of the metropolitan area of Barranquilla on the Caribbean Coast of Colombia. We examined heat disparities at the block level and used, 2018 census data to test whether population groups with high socioeconomic vulnerability were also exposed to higher land surface temperatures (LST). Specifically, we defined populations with high and low socioeconomic vulnerability based on their socioeconomic level, educational attainment, age, population density and percentage of migrant population. We tested whether those groups had differences in LST and other temperature-related variables, including NDVI (normalized difference vegetation index), NDBI (normalized difference built-up index) and distance to water. Finally, we generated a heat risk map based on socioeconomic vulnerability and heat exposure. Our results showed that high and low-vulnerability groups had significant differences in LST and distance to water compared to marginal differences in NDVI and NDBI. Spatially, due to historical urban development patterns, areas at higher heat risk were found to the south of the study region, where there is a combination of low socioeconomic level, higher population density and high LST.