18,673 research outputs found
Including the urban heat island in spatial heat health risk assessment strategies: a case study for Birmingham, UK
Background
Heatwaves present a significant health risk and the hazard is likely to escalate with the increased future temperatures presently predicted by climate change models. The impact of heatwaves is often felt strongest in towns and cities where populations are concentrated and where the climate is often unintentionally modified to produce an urban heat island effect; where urban areas can be significantly warmer than surrounding rural areas. The purpose of this interdisciplinary study is to integrate remotely sensed urban heat island data alongside commercial social segmentation data via a spatial risk assessment methodology in order to highlight potential heat health risk areas and build the foundations for a climate change risk assessment. This paper uses the city of Birmingham, UK as a case study area.
Results
When looking at vulnerable sections of the population, the analysis identifies a concentration of "very high" risk areas within the city centre, and a number of pockets of "high risk" areas scattered throughout the conurbation. Further analysis looks at household level data which yields a complicated picture with a considerable range of vulnerabilities at a neighbourhood scale.
Conclusions
The results illustrate that a concentration of "very high" risk people live within the urban heat island, and this should be taken into account by urban planners and city centre environmental managers when considering climate change adaptation strategies or heatwave alert schemes. The methodology has been designed to be transparent and to make use of powerful and readily available datasets so that it can be easily replicated in other urban areas
“What Was That All About?” Using Critical Personal Narrative For Inquiry And Critical Reflective Practice
I position Critical Personal Narrative (CPN) within the larger field of interpretive narrative inquiry, offer a framework for its use as a research tool, and conclude by suggesting ways CPN can be utilized by adult educators wanting to be critically reflective in their practice. I illustrate this with two stories of discourses at work
“Knowing One’s Self”: Selfwriting, Power and Ethical Practice
Adult educators are increasingly concerned with issues of power and identity. Drawing on my research text, The Body’s Tale, and Foucault’s writings, I explore how pastoral power effects construct subjectivities. Using three genealogical narratives—of eating, elimination and swarming—I show how we can interrupt self-regulation, and through self-writing, develop an embodied ethical practice
A Secondary Education Model of an Applied Learning Health Occupations Program
The purpose of this project was to develop an applied learning health occupations program model that encompassed interagency collaboration and partnership. The formal partnership in this project was established with the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department and the Bethel School District. Initially the model was designed for implementation in the Bethel School District and eventually other school districts in the State of Washington. To accomplish this purpose, a review of current literature regarding the future workforce, applied learning and partnerships between schools, business and the community was conducted and related materials from inservice programs and conferences was reviewed and assessed
Adult Education and the Body: Changing Performances of Teaching and Learning
I discuss recent scholarship on the body and present two theoretical frameworks that attempt to explain how the body might be constituted in educational institutions, discourses and practices, and suggest these analytical tools and the literature on the body can be linked to adult education practice
Urban Climate Station Site Selection Through Combined Digital Surface Model and Sun Angle Calculations
Meteorological measurements within urban areas are becoming increasingly important due to the accentuating effects of climate change upon the Urban Heat Island (UHI). However, ensuring that such measurements are representative of the local area is often difficult due to the diversity of the urban environment. The evaluation of sites is important for both new sites and for the relocation of established sites to ensure that long term changes in the meteorological and climatological conditions continue to be faithfully recorded. Site selection is traditionally carried out in the field using both local knowledge and visual inspection. This paper exploits and assesses the use of lidar-derived digital surface models (DSMs) to quantitatively aid the site selection process. This is acheived by combining the DSM with a solar model, first to generate spatial maps of sky view factors and sun-hour potential and second, to generate site-specific views of the horizon. The results show that such a technique is a useful first-step approach to identify key sites that may be further evaluated for the location of meteorological stations within urban areas
Derivation of Sky-View Factors from LIDAR Data
The use of Lidar (Light Detection and Ranging), an active light-emitting instrument, is becoming increasingly common for a range of potential applications. Its ability to provide fine resolution spatial and vertical resolution elevation data makes it ideal for a wide range of studies. This paper demonstrates the capability of Lidar data to measure sky view factors (SVF). The Lidar data is used to generate a spatial map of SVFs which are then compared against photographically-derived SVF at selected point locations. At each location three near-surface elevations measurements were taken and compared with collocated Lidar-derived estimated. It was found that there was generally good agreement between the two methodologies, although with decreasing SVF the Lidar-derived technique tended to overestimate the SVF: this can be attributed in part to the spatial resolution of the Lidar sampling. Nevertheless, airborne Lidar systems can map sky view factors over a large area easily, improving the utility of such data in atmospheric and meteorological models
The Mid-Infrared Extinction Law in the Ophiuchus, Perseus, and Serpens Molecular Clouds
We compute the mid-infrared extinction law from 3.6-24 microns in three
molecular clouds: Ophiuchus, Perseus, and Serpens, by combining data from the
"Cores to Disks" Spitzer Legacy Science program with deep JHKs imaging. Using a
new technique, we are able to calculate the line-of-sight extinction law
towards each background star in our fields. With these line-of-sight
measurements, we create, for the first time, maps of the chi-squared deviation
of the data from two extinction law models. Because our chi-squared maps have
the same spatial resolution as our extinction maps, we can directly observe the
changing extinction law as a function of the total column density. In the
Spitzer IRAC bands, 3.6-8 microns, we see evidence for grain growth. Below
, our extinction law is well-fit by the Weingartner & Draine
(2001) diffuse interstellar medium dust model. As the extinction
increases, our law gradually flattens, and for , the data are
more consistent with the Weingartner & Draine model that uses
larger maximum dust grain sizes. At 24 microns, our extinction law is 2-4 times
higher than the values predicted by theoretical dust models, but is more
consistent with the observational results of Flaherty et al. (2007). Lastly,
from our chi-squared maps we identify a region in Perseus where the IRAC
extinction law is anomalously high considering its column density. A steeper
near-infrared extinction law than the one we have assumed may partially explain
the IRAC extinction law in this region.Comment: 38 pages, 19 figures in pre-print format. Accepted for publication in
ApJ. A version with full-resolution figures can be found here:
http://peggysue.as.utexas.edu/SIRTF
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