Urban Living Laboratory Session at AGU in December

Posted on June 25, 2019 by dsailor

We are pleased to announce that we are organizing a session to highlight “Living Laboratory Experiments for Innovations to Improve Human Health Outcomes in Warming and Growing Cities” at the upcoming Centennial meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), 9-13 December, 2019.

This session will focus on experiments to improve understanding of complex interacting urban environmental challenges (e.g., extreme heat, air pollution, urban flooding), with an emphasis on translation of knowledge into action to improve human health outcomes.

Two categories of experiments will be highlighted: natural experiments in which spatial or temporal variations in urban design, policies or surface characteristics result in markedly different environmental and human health outcomes; and designed experiments in which urban planners/managers, community stakeholders, and researchers collaborate in the co-design and implementation of strategies and technologies to affect urban environmental parameters with the end-goal of improving human health outcomes. In both cases presenters are asked to highlight lessons learned and barriers to effective urban environmental planning and mitigation efforts.

We look forward to receiving your abstracts for oral or poster presentation in this session!
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ABSTRACT DEADLINE: 31 July 2019 23:59 EDT/03:59 +1 GMT.

Submit your abstract here!

Session ID 80729: Living Laboratory Experiments for Innovations to Improve Human Health Outcomes in Warming and Growing Cities

Organizers:
David Sailor and Paul Coseo, Arizona State University

Chanam Lee and Bruce Dvorak, Texas A&M University

Research Update: Lance Watkins

Posted on June 20, 2019 by jpinhorn

UCRC Director, Dr. David Sailor presenting Lance Watkins his 1st place, Graduate Category, for the 2019 UCRC Poster Competition
UCRC Director, Dr. David Sailor presenting Lance Watkins his 1st place, Graduate Category, for the 2019 UCRC Poster Competition.

Moving research along in the heat of the summer, Lance Watkins, 1st place winner of the spring 2019 UCRC poster competition (graduate student category), recently shared some of his updated findings. Lance is a PhD student with the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning. His research focuses on extreme heat, urban climate, and utilizing geographical information science in decision-making.
Lance’s poster titled “Comparison of Two Vulnerability Indices to Household Experience with Extreme Heat in Phoenix, Arizona, posed the following questions.

1: To what extent do measures of vulnerability based on aggregate demographic indicators correlate with measures of vulnerability based on variables at the household level?

2: Which measure of vulnerability based on aggregate demographic indicators correlates more closely with measures of vulnerability based on variables at the household level, one based on an all-hazards model, or one that is hazard specific?

In between chasing early summer storms, Lance shared the following:

We found strong relationships between several of these variables and the Heat Vulnerability Index (HVI). Households in highly vulnerable census tracts as defined by HVI were less likely to have and use central AC, less likely to have immediate access to cooler outdoor environments, more likely to use alternative cooling strategies such as window AC units and window fans, and more likely to experience heat illness requiring medical attention. The Social Vulnerability Index (SoVI) was associated with fewer survey variables. As defined by SoVI, households in more vulnerable areas in our sample were less likely to live in structurally cooler environments (e.g., limited access to basements and yards with grass), more likely to be of poorer health status, and more likely to have their home cooling be limited by the cost of repairing central AC. The differences between the two indices’ relationships with household scale variables underscores the importance of specifying the hazard of relevance when conducting a vulnerability or risk assessment.
In addition, our results suggest that, while aggregate-level vulnerability indices can help prioritize certain communities for intervention measures and future investments in structural changes in the social and built environments of cities, more precise data from households are valuable to inform the types of interventions and investments that can address the causal drivers of such vulnerability.

Lance intends to submit these findings to the journal of Applied Geography in the coming weeks.