Rural heat islands: Mapping and mitigating farmworker exposure to heat stress
Description: Urban heat islands have received much attention in climate change adaptation, but mapping and adapting to rural heat islands (RHIs) is also critical for California’s climate action and environmental justice. Farmworking communities are vulnerable to heat stress, especially in the hot desert of the Imperial Valley. In addition to warming caused by greenhouse gases, reduced water supplies across California will reduce evaporation by changing crop types and increasing fallowing rates, which can change the micro- and mesoscale climate and hence exposure to heat stress. While statistical downscaling provides useful information on heat stress (e.g. CalAdapt online tool), agricultural regions pose special challenges, as crop cover, irrigation and therefore microclimate can change rapidly over both space (10s of meters) and time (days to weeks). Finally, little research has directly integrated farmworker communities in to model- and satellite-based assessment of heat stress.
We propose to map rural heat islands and to co-produce knowledge on heat stress exposure and dissemination strategies with the farmworker community of Imperial Valley, California, including six activities: 1) Map rural heat islands using climate models and remote sensing; 2) Identify relationships between heat stress, cropping patterns and Salton Sea extent; 3) Assess farmworker experiences of heat stress using in-situ monitors and participant interviews; 4) Compare heat island maps with the in situ monitored stress in both agricultural fields and farmworker homes, both day and night; 5) Develop tools to distribute climate analysis results that can be accessed by households, managers, government agencies, schools, and the Heat Stress Awareness Program (HSAP); 6) Obtain community feedback on distribution tools, and determine how the farmworker and agricultural community accesses information about heat stress in order to develop effective communication strategies.
We will hold focus groups with community groups, government agencies and non-profits to co-design the study and results dissemination strategies. The outcomes will provide actionable, co-produced knowledge on how the combination of climate change, water scarcity, and cropping changes are likely to impact farmworker heat stress exposure, and will inform future work that provides outreach to this vulnerable community.
Amount: $1,892,000
Funding type: grant
Funder scheme: California Climate Action Seed Grant
Start date: 2023-08-01
End date: 2026-07-31
Investigators: Trent Biggs, Charles Jones
Institutions: San Diego State University, University of California, Santa Barbara
Funded outputs count: 5
Funder award ID: R02CP7521
OpenAlex ID: G970804170