Phoenix Regional Heat and Air Quality Knowledge Repository
This repository houses peer-reviewed literature, data sets, reports, and other materials generated by researchers, practitioners, and other regional stakeholders that may be informative for local and regional efforts mitigating the adverse impacts of heat. The collection is intended to serve as a resource for anyone looking for information on top research findings, reports, or initiatives related to heat and air quality. This includes community, local, state, and regional partners and other interested parties contributing to heat and air quality planning, preparedness, and response activities.
More Information: The Phoenix Regional Heat and Air Quality Knowledge Repository is product of the Healthy Urban Environments (HUE) initiative in partnership with the Urban Climate Research Center.
Filtering by
- All Subjects: Heat Surveillance
- All Subjects: Instability
The association between a developing urban heat island and local monthly averaged wind speeds is examined in this investigation. Results from a series of statistical analyses show a significant increase in wind speeds in Phoenix, Arizona during the period of rapid heat island development. The increase in winds is found to be much stronger at 0500 MST than at 1400 MST. Increased instability and the development of a strong heat low circulation in the urban environment are suggested as probable causes for the increased wind speeds.
Mortality from environmental heat is a significant public health problem in Maricopa County, especially because it is largely preventable. Maricopa County has conducted heat surveillance since 2006. Each year, the enhanced heat surveillance season usually begins in May and ends in October. The main goals of heat surveillance are to identify the demographic characteristics of heat-associated deaths (e.g., age and gender) and the risk factors for mortality (e.g., homelessness). Sharing this information helps community stakeholders to design interventions in an effort to prevent heat-associated deaths among vulnerable populations.
The two main sources of data for heat surveillance are: preliminary reports of death (PRODs) from the Office of the Medical Examiner (OME) and death certificates from the MCDPH Office of Vital Registration.
Heat-associated deaths are classified as heat-caused or heat related. Heat-caused deaths are those in which environmental heat was directly involved in the sequence of conditions causing deaths. Heat-related deaths are those in which environmental heat contributed to the deaths but was not in the sequence of conditions causing these deaths. For more information on how heat-associated deaths are classified, see the definitions in Appendix. For more information on MCDPH’s surveillance system, see Background and Methodology.