Integrating anthropogenic heat emissions and cooling accessibility to explore environmental justice in heat-related health risks in Shanghai, China

Abstract

Previous heat-related environmental justice studies have mainly concentrated on heat exposure, with few studies focusing on other aspects of heat-related health risks. However, increasing anthropogenic heat emissions (AHEs) and social disparities in the distribution of public resources due to rapid urbanization can exacerbate social inequalities in sensitivity and adaptability to heat-related health risks, respectively. This study proposes a new heat vulnerability framework by quantifying the AHEs and the public resources accessibility to assess heat-related health risks of central Shanghai, and the environmental justice in the assessment results are detected by SOM-Kmeans and a geographically weighted regression model. Results show that the AHEs and the accessibility of blue-green space and pharmaceutical resources dominate the increasing heat sensitivity and decreasing heat adaptability from the city center to the periphery. The city center has 42% higher health risks than the periphery and the highest social inequalities. Residents living in nontoilet/old housing have significant inequalities in exposure, adaptability, and vulnerability to heat-related health risks. Furthermore, elderly people and ethnic minorities have the poorest adaptability. Our findings can help improve social inequalities in urban thermal environment, thereby promoting equitably resilient urban planning.