Differential Vulnerability to Extreme Heat Events Among the UC Campuses
A quantitative analysis of social vulnerability to extreme heat in communities surrounding
UC Campuses
Extreme heat will have an increasingly severe impact on the UC campus community due
to global climate change. Despite this, no quantitative research exists to identify these impacts
and determine which UC campus communities will be most affected. I seek to understand which
UC campuses are particularly socially vulnerable to extreme heat and which factors contribute to
this vulnerability. I also explore how social vulnerability to extreme heat will change
throughout the century as a result of global climate change.
I created an Extreme Heat Event (EHE) Vulnerability Index to measure social vulnerability to extreme heat. The score combines demographic data from CalEnviroScreen with climate data from CalAdapt.
Explore the scores below using the data explorer tool!:
Click on a campus (blue icon) to explore its score.
There were a vast range of EHE Vulnerability Scores between campuses. Across each model, UCLA has the lowest EHE vulnerability score and UC Merced has the highest EHE vulnerability score.
Each campus fell into one of four categories;
high extreme heat days, high population characteristic
high extreme heat days, low population characteristic
low extreme heat days, high population characteristic
low extreme heat days, low population characteristic
These categories are determined based on whether the population characteristic and extreme heat score for each campus was above or below the UC wide average.
Questions?
Contact arlarman@ucdavis.edu to get more information on the project