Systematic exploration of heat wave impact on mortality and urban heat island: A review from 2000 to 2022

The current climate change is responsible for the growth in number of extreme climatic events like heat waves (HWs), which occur frequently with more intense effects. HW poses direct as well as indirect impact on health of population, urban heat island, air quality, and have consequences on the biological phenomena. Aim of this study is to review the available literature of research related to HW and its impact on human health and urban heat island. Science-direct is used as online database to identify the studies related to HW from 2000 to 2022 using the keyword HW impact, HW and mortality & HW extremes. To identify maximum variable information about HW and its effect throughout the world, during the extraction of articles, no constraints were added related to study area. Total 99 research articles are identified during online database search on science-direct using the mentioned keywords. After going through different inclusion and exclusion criteria, only 46 studies are included in this review article. After summarization, authors identified many effect categories, mainly were mortality, morbidity, thermal stress, air quality, biological consequences, effect of HW on demand of water and electricity, relationship between HW and Urban Heat Island, and HW related urban policies. It is observed on the basis of extracted articles that number of studies and publications on HW are increasing rapidly and sharp increase is observed in last decade. Present review clearly indicates that due to different natural and anthropogenic reasons, there is change in temperature range due to which the HW events are increasing and its studies are also increases. After reviewing the HW related articles it is recommended that it is right time to make some full proof strategies to adopt workplace heat stress standard and encourage people to planting a tree, installing cool and green roofs, etc.

Automated summary

The current climate change is causing an increase in extreme climatic events like heat waves, which have direct and indirect impacts on human health and urban heat island. This study aims to review the available literature on heat waves and their impact. After searching the online database, a total of 46 relevant studies were included. It is observed that the number of studies on heat waves is increasing due to changes in temperature range caused by natural and anthropogenic reasons.