Assessing the Spatial Mapping of Heat Vulnerability under Urban Heat Island (UHI) Effect in the Dhaka Metropolitan Area

Rakin Abrar, Showmitra Kumar Sarkar, Kashfia Tasnim Nishtha, Swapan Talukdar, Shahfahad, Atiqur Rahman, Abu Reza Md Towfiqul Islam and Amir Mosavi
Additional contact information
Rakin Abrar: Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Khulna University of Engineering & Technology (KUET), Khulna 9203, Bangladesh
Showmitra Kumar Sarkar: Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Khulna University of Engineering & Technology (KUET), Khulna 9203, Bangladesh
Kashfia Tasnim Nishtha: Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Khulna University of Engineering & Technology (KUET), Khulna 9203, Bangladesh
Swapan Talukdar: Department of Geography, Faculty of Natural Science, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi 110025, India
Shahfahad: Department of Geography, Faculty of Natural Science, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi 110025, India
Atiqur Rahman: Department of Geography, Faculty of Natural Science, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi 110025, India
Abu Reza Md Towfiqul Islam: Department of Disaster Management, Begum Rokeya University, Rangpur 5400, Bangladesh
Amir Mosavi: John von Neumann Faculty of Informatics, Obuda University, 1034 Budapest, Hungary

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 9, 1-24

Abstract: The urban heat island (UHI) phenomenon gets intensified in the process of urbanization, which increases the vulnerability of urban dwellers to heatwaves. The UHI-induced vulnerability to heatwaves has increased in Bangladesh during past decades. Thus, this study aims to examine the UHI and vulnerability to heatwaves in the city of Dhaka using a heat vulnerability index (HVI). The HVI is constructed using various demographic, socioeconomic, and environmental risk variables at thana level. Principal component analysis (PCA) was applied to the 26 normalized variables for each of the 41 thanas of Dhaka to prepare the HVI. Result shows that more than 60% of the city is under built-up areas, while vegetation cover and water bodies are in low proportion. Analysis of HVI shows that the very high- and high-risk zones comprise 6 and 11 thanas, while low- and very low-risk zones comprise only 5 and 8 thanas. The correlation of HVI with variables such as exposure (0.62) and sensitivity (0.80) was found to be highly positive, while adaptive capacity had a negative correlation (−0.26) with the HVI. Findings of this study can be utilized in the mitigation of UHI phenomenon and maintaining the thermal comfort of Dhaka.

Keywords: urban heat islands; heat waves; land surface temperature; remote sensing; urban climate; sustainability; spatial mapping; data analysis; big data; global warming (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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