Urban heat and school commutes in a Taipei district

Background

Urban heat islands raise temperatures in dense city districts, most sharply in the late afternoon when students are walking home. The literature on heat and pedestrian behaviour is largely drawn from North American and European cities; subtropical Taipei, with its arcades, narrow lanes and dense tree cover on some streets and none on others, is a different environment.

Research question

Does afternoon surface temperature along walking routes predict how long students take to get home, and does shade change the relationship?

Method

Three strands of evidence are combined:

1. Land surface temperature from open satellite data, averaged across a summer month for the study district.
2. Walking routes mapped for a set of volunteer students from school to home, with shade coverage estimated from street-level imagery.
3. Commute times self-reported for ten school days, with weather logged from the nearest station.

Analysis compares commute time against route temperature and shade fraction, with route length as a control.

Findings

A sample project does not report findings. In a real project this section would present the association, its uncertainty, and the honest limits of a small self-reported sample.

What the student would learn

Working with open geographic data, designing a small survey that respects participants, controlling for an obvious confound, and writing a discussion that does not overclaim.