Thermal Exposure Risks in the City: Supply and Demand Disparity Between Urban Shade and Pedestrian Flows Using Mobile Signaling Data
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Extreme heat poses growing health risks in high-density cities, yet static assessments often fail to capture dynamic pedestrian exposure. This study quantifies the supply and demand disparity between urban shade provision and actual pedestrian demand in Fuzhou, China, during a specific extreme heat event. Integrating high-resolution mobile signaling data with dynamic urban shade simulations, we classified the road network into risk quadrants and analyzed behavioral drivers using XGBoost and SHAP algorithms. Results show a pronounced disparity: high-risk zones carry the highest pedestrian flows (a mean daily volume of 28.6 pedestrian trajectories per segment) but exhibit minimal shade coverage (3.14%), while comfort zones provide 5.5 times greater shading coverage for comparable activity levels. In contrast, surplus zones exhibit substantial shading capacity but limited pedestrian use, indicating inefficient spatial allocation of cooling resources. Further analysis shows that pedestrian accumulation in high-risk zones is primarily driven by functional necessity, whereas pedestrian flows in comfort zones are more sensitive to thermal conditions. These findings reveal structurally embedded thermal exposure risk and support a shift from static metrics toward dynamic urban planning to protect vulnerable pedestrian flows.
Source: Land
DOI: 10.3390/land15040548
Authors: Wenxin Cai, Fei Yang, Jiawei Yi
Language: English
Topic: Urban Heat Island Mitigation
Subfield: Environmental Engineering
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $3,137
Award: G5489021530
OpenAlex ID: W7141707017