The Use of Citizen Science in the Characterization of the Lyon's Urban Heat and Cool Islands

Abstract

In metropolitan territories, the urban heat island (UHI) phenomenon is one of the most important challenges that cities will have to address in the coming years, including Lyon Metropolitan area (France). Apart from temperature changes between urban zones and peri-urban zones, there are also air temperature variations in the intra-urban area, the so-called urban canyons, which also contribute to the UHI effect. Measurements from professional monitoring stations provide data for a limited number of locations. The participation of citizens is extremely useful for the observation and monitoring of field measurements in different locations around the city. Citizen science approaches to weather monitoring provide a potential solution to collecting a larger amount of data across a city or region and a more realistic approach to temperature gradients. One the other hand, these crowdsourcing measurements cannot replace, but they complement professional data.