IMPLEMENTATION OF GEO-SENSOR FOR URBAN HEAT WAVE MONITORING

Abstract

Health Warning Systems (HWS) are setup in place by governments to help the masses in protecting themselves form contrary paraphernalia of heat waves all over the world. This study proposes a Heat Wave Early Response System on a Union Council (UC) level for Karachi, Pakistan. It is built on strategic deployment of a real-time sensor network. The network comprises of nodes. A sensor node consists of a temperature and humidity sensor, an atmospheric pressure sensor and a radio unit, for wireless transmission of data. Data thus recorded, is transmitted on hourly basis to a database operating on a local server. This database serves as the data hub for the online monitoring system. The UC supervisor is privileged to send light and heavy warnings in case a heatwave is expected. This network is based on site suitability incorporating LST (Land Surface Temperature), air temperature and land cover derived from Landsat Satellite Missions 8 OLI, 7 ETM+ and 4-5 TM using remote sensing techniques.