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Thousands of Americans are impacted each summer by excessive heat and humidity, some suffering from heat-related illnesses when the body can't cool itself down. Data from NASA satellites could help local governments reduce the sweltering risks, thanks to a collaboration between NASA scientists and officials in Prince George's County, Maryland. The effort demonstrates how local officials in other communities could turn to NASA data to inform decisions that provide residents with relief from summer heat.
NASA researchers and their Prince George's County collaborators reported in Frontiers in Environmental Science that they used the Landsat 8 satellite, jointly operated by NASA and the US Geological Survey, and NASA's Aqua satellite, to gain insight into surface temperature trends across the county over the past few decades. The data also show how temperatures have responded to changing land use and construction. It is information that county planners and environmental experts hope can aid them in their attempts to remediate and prevent heat dangers in the future. The collaboration may also help the county's first responders anticipate and prepare for heat-related emergencies and injuries.
Cooperation with Prince George's County expands on NASA's historic role, said Stephanie Schollaert Uz, an applications scientist with NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and one of the study authors. "Applying government satellite data to county-level problems is new here. We're trying to make it easier for people outside of NASA to use our data, in part by including how-to guides referenced at the end of our paper," Schollaert Uz said.
In the long run, county officials hope to use NASA satellites to track the negative health impacts that arise from land use and modification. Removal of tree cover and the construction of non-permeable roads, parking lots, and structures that lead to water runoff are among the factors that create heat islands, where temperatures in localized areas soar relative to the surrounding landscape. In addition to the direct dangers of heat for county residents and workers, areas with higher-than-normal temperatures can drive intense local weather events.
"There's potentially a greater incidence of microbursts," said Mary Abe of Prince George's County's sustainability division. "The atmosphere can become supercharged over hot spots," causing high winds and flood-inducing rains.
Prince George's County planners anticipate relying on NASA satellites to determine where residents and county employees are at greater risk, predict how future construction could impact heat dangers, and develop strategies to moderate heat in areas currently experiencing elevated summer temperatures. Efforts might include protecting existing trees and planting new ones. It could include replacing impermeable surfaces (cement, pavement, etc.) with alternatives that let water soak into the ground rather than running off into storm drains. To verify and calibrate the satellite observations crucial for such planning, county experts are considering enlisting residents to act as citizen scientists to collect temperature and weather data on the ground, Abe said.
Eventually, the NASA satellite temperature data could also lead to strategies to curb insect-borne diseases, said Evelyn Hoban, associate director for the Prince George's County division of environmental health and communicable disease. "Once we know where the higher temperatures are, we can check to see if they create mosquito or tick breeding grounds," said Hoban, who coauthored the study. "We could then focus our outreach and education, and perhaps prevention efforts, on areas of greater heat and risk."
A NASA guide is available to aid other communities who hope to duplicate the Prince George's County study. The guide provides introductions on a variety of NASA satellite and ground-based weather station data. Instructions for downloading and analyzing the data are illustrated in an accompanying tutorial that uses the Prince George's County study as an example for other communities to follow on their own.
One of the greatest benefits of the collaboration, Abe said, is the boost in credibility that comes from incorporating NASA resources and expertise in the county's efforts to improve safety and health. "It's partly the NASA brand. People recognize it and they're really intrigued by it," she said. "Working with NASA builds confidence that the decision-making process is based firmly in science."
