Detection and Characterization of Urban Heat Islands with Machine Learning

  • Muaaz Bhamjee
  • , Hiyam Debary
  • , Zaheed Gaffoor
  • , Tamara Govindasamy
  • , Craig Mahlasi
  • , Mustansar Fiaz
  • , Etienne Vos
  • , Levente Klein
  • , Sibusisiwe Makhanya
  • , Campbell Watson
  • , Julian Kuehnert

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

3 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Assessing and understanding the urban scale impacts of extreme climate events is a global necessity. Risks associated with heat, where intra-urban dynamics and rural/urban boundary conditions greatly impact its distribution, are of particular interest as the evolution of climate change and ur-banization persists. Characterizing Urban Heat Island (UHI) effects is dependent on the availability of high-resolution near-surface air temperature maps and a description of the Local Climate Zones (LCZs). This study assesses the applicability of state-of-the-art (SOTA) Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques for UHI detection and characterization. A Geospatial Foundation Model (GFM) is fine-tuned to predict 2 m air temperature at a 1 km resolution for the urban areas of Johannesburg, South Africa, with mean absolute error measures less than 1.5 °C. UHI characterization is further enabled through a Fully Connected Network (FCN) model for LCZs classification for the same region of interest.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationIGARSS 2024 - 2024 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, Proceedings
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages1693-1699
Number of pages7
ISBN (Electronic)9798350360325
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2024
Externally publishedYes
Event2024 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, IGARSS 2024 - Athens, Greece
Duration: 7 Jul 202412 Jul 2024

Publication series

NameInternational Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS)

Conference

Conference2024 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, IGARSS 2024
Country/TerritoryGreece
CityAthens
Period7/07/2412/07/24

Keywords

  • AI techniques
  • Geospatial Foundation Models
  • Local Climate Zones
  • Urban Heat Islands
  • urban scale temperature

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Computer Science Applications
  • General Earth and Planetary Sciences

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