Distribution of Urban Heat Island effect and News attention in Taiwan’s major cities

      Due to the seriousness of global warming and climate change, climate-related mitigation and adaptation have become one of the biggest concerns worldwide, including Taiwan. Therefore, Urban Heat Island (UHI) mitigation and adaptation are important in Taiwan, which is beneficial for outdoor thermal comfort and citizen’s health. Although there is a different seriousness of the UHI effect in Taiwan’s major cities, most of the news attention is focused on Taipei City, the capital of Taiwan, which may underestimate the climate issues in other cities. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the UHI effect in the 5 major cities in Taiwan, and also their climate-related news attention, using big data analysis and Geographical Information System (GIS). First of all, meteorological data in the above cities in recent years was collected and the UHI distribution in different cities was interpolated through GIS. Then the UHI intensity (UHII) of different cities in recent years was further calculated, to present the seriousness of the UHI effect in different cities. On the other hand, climate-related news in Taiwan in recent years was obtained and filtered from Google using a web crawler. After that, the relationship between UHII and news attention was further analyzed. For the results, the UHI effects in different cities were investigated, and the hotspots were identified, which were mainly distributed downtown with more commercial and residential areas. Moreover, the UHII in different cities in recent years was further investigated. The strongest UHII can be found in Taipei City in 2023, and the UHII of most of the major cities increased in recent years, which presented the deterioration of climate conditions in different cities. However, there is no strong correlation between UHII and news attention. Although the amount of climate-related news increased with the increasing UHII, most of the news attention focused on the climate issues in Taipei City, which is significantly higher than other cities. The above phenomenon may cause less climate-related policy attention in other cities because of the less news attention. Moreover, policymakers may make UHI mitigation and adaptation strategies based on the climate and urban conditions in Taipei City because of the higher news attention, which may be less suitable for other cities. According to the above findings, spatial and climate injustice can be observed and should be further discussed and addressed, to ensure sustainable development in Taiwan. In summary, this study investigated the UHI effect and UHII in Taiwan’s major cities and further discussed the uneven climate-related news attention distribution in Taiwan. The results can remind the public and policymakers in Taiwan to further concern about the climate issues in cities apart from Taipei City, which is beneficial for UHI mitigation and adaptation in Taiwan.