Introduction

During the fall 2020 term of NASA's DEVELOP National Program, participants used geospatial data and technologies to investigate, analyze, and monitor several issues around the world. Some of the topics explored throughout the term included agriculture, air quality, drought, ecosystems, energy, natural disasters, oceans, urban planning, water resources, and wildfires. Each project completed by a DEVELOP team is conducted in partnership with agencies or organizations local to the study area. Fundamental to the analytical and geospatial component of each of these projects is NASA Earth science remote sensing data.

Science Objectives

One of the fall projects used NASA earth observation data to investigate drivers of urban heat. The southwestern United States is known for its semi-arid climate and hot temperatures. In Tempe, Arizona, temperatures are regularly above 37.8° C (100.0° F) during the summer. The area has seen an increase in surface and air temperatures as the city has urbanized and expanded its footprint. This has raised concerns from city and health officials in Tempe because Maricopa County has seen thousands of heat related hospitalizations and hundreds of heat related deaths over the past 15 years. The Tempe Urban Development II team set out to use NASA Earth science remote sensing data to investigate what is driving the temperature increases and identifying locations in the city that would benefit most from targeted heat mitigation and adaptation efforts.
 

Instruments and Techniques Used

The project leveraged data from Aqua Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), specifically the Nighttime Land Surface Temperature (LST) (MYD11A1) data product, and composite data derived from Landsat 8 Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) and Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) (e.g. NDVI, NDWI, and NDBI). These data, combined with ancillary census, bus stop, and Light Detection and Ranging (lidar) data, were used to make various heat exposure, vulnerability, and priority maps through a principal component analysis.

References

Publication Reference

Boogaard, S., Dialesandro, J., Shun Anson Pang, Y., and Steiner, S., 2021, Tempe Urban Development II—Establishing an Urban Heat Exposure Severity Score for Infrastructure Prioritization in Tempe, Arizona, Using NASA Earth Observations and LiDAR: NASA DEVELOP National Program web page, accessed April 27, 2021, at https://develop.larc.nasa.gov/2020/fall/TempeUrbanDevII.html.

Image Reference

The NASA DEVELOP Team used Aqua MODIS version 6 data. The LP DAAC recently released Terra and Aqua MODIS version 6.1 data. The equivalent version 6.1 Aqua MODIS set used in this project can be found here: doi:10.5067/MODIS/MYD11A1.061.

About the NASA DEVELOP National Program

The DEVELOP National Program is part of NASA’s Applied Sciences Program. Participants from around the country join the DEVELOP program for 10-week terms to apply data acquired by NASA Earth-observing satellites to bridge the gap between science and society. DEVELOP participants work with non-profit, local, state, and federal partners to create maps and other products in eight focus areas, including Food Security & Agriculture, Disasters, Ecological Forecasting, Energy, Health & Air Quality, Urban Development, Water Resources, and Transportation & Infrastructure.

Any use of trade, firm, or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.