MI-Environment: Climate Vulnerability 2015

2015

Team members

Patricia Koman, Frank Romo, Susan Landfried, Meredith Burke, Kyu Lee

Partners

Chris Coombe, Nancy French, Beth Gibbons, Kimberly Knott Hill, Donele Wilkins

Adviser

Marie O'Neill , Carina Gronlund, Robert Goodspeed

Project Summary

Northern states such as Michigan have a need to characterize climate change related exposures and vulnerabilities, especially regarding heat stress. Academic and community partners can provide the necessary methods development, data, and impetus for a state to enhance its exposure assessment and thereby facilitate healthier, sustainable communities.

We completed a first heat stress Geographic Information System (GIS) layer of a larger We assembled readily available underlying data and created heat stress vulnerability indices and maps, including for the first time temperature projections from climate modeling ensembles, that will allow the public to understand the location and relative magnitude climate vulnerability on selected metrics across the state of Michigan. This phase focused on vulnerabilities to heat stress at the census tract level as one example of a climate change-related human health impact.