NOAA Urban Heat Islands Program (2017-2024)

Since 2017, NOAA (Office of Education, Climate Program Office, National Integrated Heat Health Information System (NIHHIS)) has funded CAPA Heat Watch to support 80+ communities across the United States in mapping their urban heat islands (UHI). CAPA Strategies has developed a process to help cities plan and execute a volunteer-based community science field campaign that builds upon local partnerships, engages residents in a scientific study to map and understand how heat is distributed in their communities, and produces high-quality outputs that have been used in city sustainability plans, public health practices, urban forestry, research projects, and other engagement activities.

The collection of Heat Island Mapping information is authorized under the OMB Control Number included in the Citizen Science & Crowdsourcing Information Collection page.

See community profiles, learn more about the participants, and download data and reports.

These community science field campaigns are an excellent opportunity to raise awareness about the many impacts of extreme heat and the factors that may affect the uneven distribution of heat throughout a community. It is also an opportunity to teach aspiring young scientists about how scientific field campaigns are conducted, consists of volunteers learning about urban heat in a training session, attaching sensors to their vehicles, and driving pre-mapped transects through their cities to collect temperature and humidity data that is linked to GPS coordinates.

The final product of the community science field campaigns is a set of high resolution air temperature and humidity data, and a report by CAPA Strategies that provides a detailed analysis of distribution of heat in the morning, afternoon and evening. Interactive, high resolution web maps of the modeled air temperature and heat index are also provided.. The maps are produced using a machine learning process that combines satellite imagery and air temperature and humidity readings collected by volunteers during the campaign. For more information consult a recent publication on the mapping process.