department of Planning, industry & environment

NSW Heat Vulnerability Index to ABS Statistical Area level 1 2016

 

What is this dataset?

The NSW Heat Vulnerability Index dataset provides an indication of the vulnerability of population to the adverse effects of urban heat for areas within the Greater Sydney Region and the Significant Urban Area. Heat Vulnerability Index (HVI) uses indexed indicators of exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity to calculate an overall HVI score.

How can the dataset be used?

Areas vulnerable to heat tend to have higher concentrations of populations who are more sensitive, less adaptive and more exposed to the adverse effects of heat. A vulnerability score of 1 represents a combination of low exposure, low sensitivity and/or high adaptive capacity. A vulnerability score of 5 represents high exposure, high sensitivity and/or low adaptive capacity. Information on the location of areas with more vulnerable populations can be used to prioritise areas for urban greening, thereby helping to mitigate against the impacts of urban heat. This dataset can be used in conjunction with the NSW urban vegetation cover dataset for the same time period for broader analysis of the relationship of heat to green cover.

What area does the dataset cover?

The dataset is relevant for the Significant Urban Area (SUA), a classification used by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), of the Sydney Greater Metropolitan Area (GMA), which covers urban, major urban, peri-urban and other urban areas. It does not provide complete coverage of the full extent of Greater Sydney Region, particularly the non-urban areas of large outlying LGAs such as Hawkesbury, Wollondilly and Blue Mountains. Parts of the Illawarra, Central Coast and Lower Hunter regions are also outside of the spatial extent of data coverage.

How was the dataset created and what time period does it cover?

The dataset was derived from the analysis of land surface temperature (LST) data from Landsat 8 satellite imagery and the thermal and infrared bands with a 30m resolution for the summer season of 2015-2016. The dataset was combined with vegetation area, road area, and socio-economic data from the 2016 Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Census and mapped to the ABS Statistical Area Level 1 polygon dataset.

What are the key attributes of the dataset?

Data Category	Field name(s)	Description of attribute value
Heat Vulnerability Index	HVI	HVI score on a scale of 1 to 5
Exposure Indicator	Expos_Indx	Exposure Index score on a scale of 1 to 5
Sensitivity Indicator	Sensi_Indx	Sensitivity Index score on a scale of 1 to 5
Adaptive Capacity Indicator	AdapC_Indx	Adaptive Capacity Index score on a scale of 1 to 5

 

Access to the dataset

This dataset and the relevant metadata are publicly available on the NSW SEED data portal.

Contact

For questions about the dataset, contact the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment

data.broker@environment.nsw.gov.au or 131555

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