Urban Heat Island (UHI) intensity (90th percentile), Jan. 2020

This vector dataset shows the Urban Heat Island (UHI) intensity (in degrees Celsius °C) for 100 European cities, based on their elevation above sea level, land use, soil sealing, vegetation index and anthropogenic heat flux. The Urban Heat Island intensity exacerbates high temperatures in cities and thus may pose additional risks to human thermal comfort and health.

The UHI intensity is represented by spatial P90 (90th percentile) urban heat island intensity of a given city ("P90" field in the dataset). This indicator is calculated by subtracting the rural (non-water) spatial P10 (10th percentile) temperature value from the average, height-corrected (to exclude terrain effects), air temperature map. This indicator represents the specific exposure of single cities and due to the height correction will be comparable across Europe.

The dataset has been created by VITO within the Copernicus Health contract for C3S and is based on UrbClim model (De Ridder et al. 2015). The 100 European cities for the urban simulations were selected based on user requirements within the health community.

Simple

Identification info

Date (Creation)
2019-07-09T00:00:00
Date (Publication)
2020-01-07T00:00:00
Edition

01.00

Citation identifier
eea_v_4326_100_k_uhi-intensity_p_2008-2017_v01_r00

Spatial representation type
Vector

Spatial resolution

Equivalent scale

Denominator
100000
Topic category
  • Environment
  • Climatology, meteorology, atmosphere

Extent

Temporal extent

Time period
2008-01-01 2017-12-31

Extent

Extent

N
S
E
W




Maintenance and update frequency
Not planned
GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0
GEMET

  • climate

  • climate change impact

  • urban environment, urban stress

  • climate change adaptation

  • urban area

Continents, countries, sea regions of the world.

  • Norway

  • Finland

  • Germany

  • Lithuania

  • Spain

  • Austria

  • Croatia

  • Belgium

  • Ireland

  • Romania

  • Albania

  • Switzerland

  • France

  • Italy

  • Montenegro

  • Poland

  • Denmark

  • Serbia

  • United Kingdom

  • Portugal

  • Luxembourg

  • Netherlands

  • Slovenia

  • North Macedonia

  • Sweden

  • Bosnia and Herzegovina

  • Slovakia

  • Hungary

  • Czechia

  • Iceland

  • Latvia

  • Bulgaria

  • Greece

  • Estonia

Spatial scope
EEA topics

  • Climate adaptation

Resource constraints

Access constraints
Other restrictions
Other constraints
no limitations to public access

Resource constraints

Use constraints
Other restrictions
Other constraints

License CC-BY 4.0 ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Copyright holder: European Environment Agency (EEA), Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S).

Language
English
Additional Information

The scale provided is approximate.

Distribution Information

Distribution format

  • SHP

OnLine resource

https://sdi.eea.europa.eu/webdav/datastore/public/eea_v_4326_100_k_uhi-intensity_p_2008-2017_v01_r00/

OnLine resource

https://climate-adapt.eea.europa.eu/en/knowledge/tools/urban-adaptation

OnLine resource

Direct download

OnLine resource

OnLine resource

https://climate.discomap.eea.europa.eu/arcgis/rest/services/UAMV/Urban_Heat_Island_Intensity/MapServer

Data quality info

Hierarchy level
Dataset

Report

Result

Title

Commission Regulation (EU) No 1089/2010 of 23 November 2010 implementing Directive 2007/2/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards interoperability of spatial data sets and services

Date (Publication)
2010-12-08
Explanation

See the referenced specification

Resource lineage

Statement

The intensity of UHI was estimated for 100 European cities in the framework of the Copernicus European Health contract for the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S).

High resolution (100m) hourly temperature (2008-2017) was simulated with the urban climate model UrbClim (De Ridder et al., 2015). Summer season is June, July and August. The intensity of UHI is represented by spatial P90 (90th percentile) UHI intensity of a given city. This indicator is calculated by subtracting the rural (non-water) spatial P10 (10th percentile) temperature value from the average, height-corrected (to exclude terrain effects), air temperature map.

Taking the spatial P90 value for a given city conforms the methodology of Dosio (2016). This indicator represents the specific exposure of single cities and due to the height correction will be comparable across Europe.

References:

De Ridder, K, Lauwaet D. and Maiheu, B. (2015): UrbClim – A fast urban boundary layer climate model, Urban Climate, Vol. 12, pp. 21–48. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.uclim.2015.01.001.

Dosio, A. (2016), Projections of climate change indices of temperature and precipitation from an ensemble of bias-adjusted high-resolution EURO-CORDEX regional climate models, J. Geophys. Res. Atmos., 121, 5488–5511, doi:10.1002/2015JD024411.

Hierarchy level
Dataset
Source

Reference System Information

Reference System Information

Code
EPSG:4326

Metadata

Metadata identifier
8b6a3182-0889-4109-ad22-a021e3126b60

Language
English
Character encoding
UTF8
Contact
Organisation Individual Electronic mail address Website Role

European Environment Agency

sdi@eea.europa.eu

Point of contact

Type of resource

Resource type
Dataset
Metadata linkage

https://sdi.eea.europa.eu/geonetwork/srv/api/records/8b6a3182-0889-4109-ad22-a021e3126b60

Date info (Creation)
2020-09-10T09:47:08Z
Date info (Revision)
2025-10-09T11:02:37.448918Z

Metadata standard

Title

ISO 19115/19139

Edition

1.0

 
 
Access to the catalogue

Overviews

Spatial extent

Keywords

EEA topics

Climate adaptation
GEMET

climate climate change adaptation climate change impact urban area urban environment, urban stress
GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0

Atmospheric conditions Meteorological geographical features
Spatial scope

European


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Access to the catalogue