Key Features
What Urban Heat Island Effect Tool Does
Details
Overview
The European Environment Agency’s Urban Heat Island monitoring tool provides cities with accessible satellite thermal data to identify, map and track urban heat islands (UHI) at fine spatial resolutions. By comparing surface temperatures across urban and peri-urban zones, planners can pinpoint the hottest neighbourhoods and prioritise cooling interventions.
Key Features
- Thermal mapping: Land Surface Temperature (LST) derived from Copernicus Sentinel and Landsat satellites
- Trend analysis: Decade-long time series to quantify UHI intensification over time
- Land-cover integration: Overlay heat data with green space, impervious surface and building-density layers
- Open data exports: GeoTIFF and CSV downloads for use in GIS workflows
Who Is It For?
Urban planners, public-health officials, and researchers studying the relationship between land use, heat exposure and population vulnerability. The tool is designed to be accessible even to non-specialists through a browser-based interface.
Getting Started
Visit the EEA Urban Environment page to access the interactive maps and download datasets. The EEA also publishes guidance on interpreting UHI data for adaptation planning.