Thousands of Americans are affected each summer by excessive heat and humidity, some suffering from heat -related diseases when the body cannot cool. NASA satellite data could help local governments reduce stifling risks, thanks to a collaboration between NASA scientists and Prince George county, Maryland. The effort shows how local officials from other communities could turn to NASA data to shed light on the decisions that relieved residents of summer heat.
NASA researchers and their collaborators from Prince George County reported in Frontiers in Environmental Science that they used the Landsat 8 satellite, jointly operated by NASA and US Geological Survey, and the NASA Aqua satellite, to obtain an overview of surface temperature trends across the county in recent decades. The data also shows how temperatures have responded to the evolution of land use and construction. This is information that county planners and environmental experts hope to help them help them remedy and prevent heat dangers in the future. Collaboration can also help the county’s first stakeholders to anticipate and prepare for emergency and heat -related injuries.
Cooperation with Prince George County develops the historic role of NASA, said Stephanie Schollaert Uz, scientist of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center applications in Greenbelt, Maryland and one of the study authors. “The application of satellite government data to the county problems is new here. We are trying to facilitate the reference for people outside NASA, including in part by including practical guides referenced at the end of our article, “said Schollaert Uz.
In the long term, county officials hope to use NASA satellites to follow the negative health impacts that arise from the use and modification of land. The elimination of the covering of trees and the construction of non -permeable roads, parking lots and structures that lead to water runoff are part of the factors that create heat islands, where temperatures in localized areas go up compared to the surrounding landscape. In addition to the direct heat dangers for residents and county workers, areas with higher temperatures that normal can cause intense local weather events.
“There is potentially a greater incidence of microburstes,” said Mary Abe of the Division of Sustainable Development of Prince George County. “The atmosphere can become supercharged on hot spots”, causing violent winds and rains inducing floods.
Prince George County planners plan to rely on NASA satellites to determine where county residents and employees are more at risk, predict how future construction could have an impact on the dangers of heat and develop strategies to moderate heat in areas that currently experience high summer temperatures. The efforts could include the protection of existing trees and the planting of new ones. It could include the replacement of waterproof surfaces (cement, road, etc.) by alternatives that allow you to enter the ground rather than flee into storm sewers. To verify and calibrate crucial satellite observations for such planning, county experts plan to make residents enlist to act as citizen scientists to collect data on temperature and weather on the ground, Abe said.
Finally, NASA satellite temperature data could also lead to strategies to limit diseases transmitted by insects, said Evelyn Hoban, associate director of the Division of Environmental Health and Transmitted by Prince George County. “Once we know where the higher temperatures are, we can check if they create mosquitoes or check reproductive grounds,” said Hoban, who co-written the study. “We could then concentrate our awareness and our education, and perhaps prevention efforts, in the fields of heat and higher risk.”
A NASA guide is available to help other communities that hope to reproduce the study of Prince George County. The guide provides introductions to a variety of data on the NASA satellite weather stations and the ground. Data download and analysis instructions are illustrated in a tutorial that accompanies it which uses the study of Prince George County as an example so that other communities can follow them.
One of the greatest advantages of collaboration, Abe said is the strengthening of credibility that comes from the integration of NASA resources and expertise in the county efforts to improve safety and health. “This is partly the NASA brand. People recognize him and they are really intrigued by this, “she said. “Working with NASA strengthens the confidence that the decision -making process is firmly based in science.”
By James Riordon
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Media contact: Elizabeth VLOCK
NASA Headquarters
