From comfort to survival: Indoor heat vulnerability during extreme events
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Urbanization and largescale meteorological forcing intensify impacts from extreme heat events globally, with most heat-related deaths occurring indoors. Understanding the relation between heat and where people live is therefore an urgent topical area. Here we introduce a Monte Carlo approach that bridges national representative building models with local property records for developing the heat impact - housing analysis. The novel approach improves mapping by reducing uncertainty from 40-60% to below 3%. This building typification now allows the development of more representative physiologically-based heat risk metrics quantifying both cumulative and consecutive exposure to dangerous conditions. This methodology was demonstrated for Austin, Texas. The analysis helps identify three distinct vulnerability profiles during heatwave-blackout scenarios: high-resilience buildings providing safe conditions, moderate-vulnerability buildings approaching dangerous thresholds, and critical-risk buildings rapidly crossing survivability thresholds. While 85% of buildings currently face significant heat risk for elderly occupants, additional temperature increases will dramatically increase vulnerability for younger populations (from 15% to 65% of buildings). In a psychrometric analysis we map physiological survivability limits onto temperature-humidity parameters at the building level, while at the neighborhood-scale, we demonstrate how the temperature increase will eliminate safety buffers, transforming isolated risk hotspots into widespread danger zones. These findings provide evidence-based criteria for targeted retrofiting and emergency response planning. The relevance of our extreme event scenario modeling is underscored by recent 2024 Houston Derecho where power outages during extreme heat resulted in multiple fatalities.
Source: Building and Environment
Language: English
Subfield: Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $4,280
Awards: G1464356843, G4126182361, PURPOSE:THE PURPOSE OF THIS GRANT IS TO PROVIDE NEW DATA SETS, A COMPUTATIONAL URBAN DIGITAL TWIN FRAMEWORK, AND DOWNSCALED CLIMATE INFORMATION FOR URBAN SCALE ANALYSIS TO ENABLE DATA-DRIVEN DECISION MAKING REGARDING THE DEPLOYMENT OF CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE TO BETTER PREPARE FOR FUTURE EXTREME WEATHER SHOCKS AND STRESSORS.ACTIVITIES TO BE PERFORMED:FOUR PRIMARY TASKS WILL BE PERFORMED. FIRST, THE TEAM WILL CREATE FIRST-OF-ITS-KIND DATASETS AT THE CITY NEIGHBORHOOD/COMMUNITY SCALE FOR EXTREME WEATHER AND ENVIRONMENTAL STRESSORS USING MACHINE LEARNING AND COMPUTATIONAL TOOLS. SECOND, THESE HIGH-RESOLUTION PRODUCTS WILL BE BUILT INTO A DIGITAL CITY CLIMATE ATLAS THAT CAN BE USED BY THE DIFFERENT CITY DEPARTMENTS, RESILIENCY/SUSTAINABILITY OFFICE, AGENCIES, AND COMMUNITIES TO UNDERSTAND WHICH AREAS REQUIRE ATTENTION TO MITIGATE EXTREME HEAT OR OTHER ENVIRONMENTAL STRESSORS. THIRD, THE TEAM WILL DEVELOP COMPUTATIONAL WEB PORTAL/TOOLS USING WEATHER DATA AND SATELLITE REMOTE SENSED DATASETS AS WELL AS COMPUTATIONAL MODELS TO CREATE A DIGITAL TWIN FOR UNDERSTANDING HOW SMOKE FROM BRUSHFIRE AND OTHER SOURCES CAN TRAVEL WITHIN THE CITY AND THUS HELP WITH COMMUNITY AWARENESS AND MITIGATION PLANS. FINALLY, THE TEAM CONDUCT COMMUNITY WORKSHOPS, SUCH AS AN EXTREME WEATHER ACADEMY, AND FOSTER PARTNERSHIPS WITH DIFFERENT COMMUNITY GROUPS TO IDENTIFY THE LINKS BETWEEN WHAT WEATHER AND ENVIRONMENTAL STRESSORS ARE IDENTIFIED FROM THESE HIGH SPATIAL RESOLUTION DATASETS AND HOW THOSE ALIGN WITH COMMUNITY EXPERIENCES.EXPECTED OUTCOMES:THE PROJECT WILL PROVIDE NEW DATASETS, A COMPUTATIONAL URBAN DIGITAL TWIN FRAMEWORK, AND DOWNSCALED CLIMATE INFORMATION FOR URBAN SCALE ANALYSIS TO ENABLE DATA-DRIVEN DECISION MAKING REGARDING. WHERE AND HOW GREEN CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE SHOULD BE DEPLOYED.INTENDED BENEFICIARIES:THE RESULTS OF THIS RESEARCH WILL BENEFIT THE GENERAL PUBLIC, COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS. THIS IS A VERY CROSS DISCIPLINARY TOPIC AND EFFORT. THE OUTPUT WOULD BE AIMED AT ANYONE DOING COMMUNITY PLANNING IN THE AREAS OF SUSTAINABILITY AND RESILIENCE.SUBRECIPIENT ACTIVITIES:THE RECIPIENT PLANS TO SUBAWARD FUNDS TO CONDUCT COMMUNITY PARTNER PARTICIPATION OF THIS RESEARCH PROJECT., Workshop on Atmospheric and Urban Digital Twins (AUDT); Austin, Texas
OpenAlex ID: W4416822419