Separate heat exposure from water constraints
Davis can plan for heat and water risks by testing outdoor heat exposure and assessing water constraints separately. Use heat results to compare adaptation designs. Use a separate water assessment to check which designs the city can support.
The Davis Vanguard signal places both risks in the same planning frame. The workflow here describes a planning test, not a completed Davis study.
Start with a specific question: which public spaces need heat reduction, and which options fit the city's water plan? Record the weather source, study boundary and selected hours. Keep water requirements beside the heat results. Do not treat a heat map as a complete assessment of both risks.
Map heat stress across Davis public spaces
infrared.city provides heat-stress simulation through Infrared Core. For a Davis assessment, run heat stress across the agreed citywide study boundary. Use a metre-scale outdoor ground grid. Select daytime hours over a typical summer from the agreed weather file.
The output maps the percentage of selected time above the UTCI heat-stress threshold at each ground cell. The Simulation library also provides UTCI values for a chosen time window. Inspect those values during selected hot periods to understand the seasonal map.
City planners and municipal engineers can use the results to shortlist public spaces for design testing. Review waiting areas, walking routes and public entrances within that shortlist. Heat-stress frequency is not a prediction of individual health outcomes.
Test trees, shade structures and ground materials at the shortlisted sites. Keep the weather, period and analysis settings unchanged across designs. This citywide adaptation workflow helps the team select sites and options for detailed assessment.
Review cooling options with their water requirements
Prepare a comparison table for each shortlisted site. Include baseline heat-stress frequency, the design result and the simulation assumptions. Add water requirements from the separate assessment. A lower simulated heat value does not establish water availability.
The current Live layer supports adaptation testing against a forecast or a typical summer. It returns maps and a dataset that teams can query by place and hour. Municipal teams can inspect the selected locations without reducing the whole study to a citywide average.
For council review, present the heat comparison beside the water assessment. Identify missing inputs and unresolved constraints. Use that combined record to decide which options merit further design work.
Sources
- Davis Vanguard , accessed 31 Oct 2026.