Geospatial tools for mapping heat risk and prioritising resilient infrastructure investments

By Uttam Pudasaini, Director, Climate and DRR Technology Department, and Kundan Jung Thapa, Programme Coordinator, Urban Informatics Department, NAXA, Kathmandu, Nepal

At NAXA, a youth-led GeoICT company based in Kathmandu, we have spent the past decade turning spatial data into decisions for disaster risk reduction, climate risk assessments and adaptation planning.

We understand that different data-driven, digital, and spatial tools and technologies add value across heat assessment and adaptation planning work.

• Satellite imagery from Landsat, Sentinel, and MODIS derives land surface temperature, vegetation, water, and built-up density to map urban heat islands at neighbourhood scale.
• Drones add centimetre-level detail on rooftops and settlements that satellites miss.
• Weather station data anchors the analysis to local heat thresholds.
• Web platforms turn results into interactive dashboards, ward-level risk maps, and automated alerts.
• AI classifies land cover, detects building footprints, and scales the analysis across cities and much more.

Some of our recent key assignments illustrate this practice:

• Heat Hotspot Analysis, Mapping and Web-based Visualisation with Alert System (Client/Partner: IFRC / American Red Cross). We mapped heat hotspots across Siddharthanagar and Nepalgunj by processing land surface temperature and vegetation indices, then overlaying exposure and vulnerability to rank the most affected areas, feeding a dashboard that monitors thresholds and automatically alerts communities and authorities.
• Web-based Platform for Heatwave and Coldwave (Client/Partner: Institute of Himalayan Risk Reduction). A web-GIS anticipatory tool linking real-time and forecast data from the Department of Hydrology and Meteorology with 1991–2020 climate baselines. It flags hotspots using absolute and percentile-based thresholds, tracks anomalies, and triggers alerts, built on a modular architecture with training so local institutions can run it themselves.
• Heat and Heat-Related Health Risk Assessment in Biratnagar and Sainamaina (Client/Partner: IFRC/Swiss Red Cross/Finnish Red Cross). Our most comprehensive assignment moves from hazard to human impact, pairing hotspot and vulnerability mapping with a health-impact study covering heat-related illness, mortality, dehydration, cardiovascular, respiratory, maternal, child, and mental health. Findings fed local
• heat thresholds and a municipal Heat Action Plan centred on women workers, the elderly, children, and pregnant women.

DASTAA (Digital and Spatial Technologies for Anticipatory Action) – where people, data, and technology converge: DASTAA is our in-house platform that brings this analysis down to a single facility or household, fusing field sensor readings, satellite analytics, and facility surveys into a tailored risk assessment, scorecard, and adaptation and disaster-response plan. We have generated such plans for roughly 35,000 flood-exposed households across Nepal and Bangladesh. Applied to heat, the same engine assesses each school, health post, or market on its own terms rather than an averaged ward statistic, so a clinic with no shade is treated differently from one beside a park. We are now integrating AI into DASTAA to close the gap between assessment and action. Today, producing an adaptation plan requires expert interpretation. With AI, the platform will read a facility’s sensor, satellite, and survey data and draft a tailored adaptation plan automatically, recommending shading, ventilation, cool roofing, water access, green cover, and adjusted working hours, refining its recommendations with each new assessment.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this piece are those of the author/s and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of AIDMI.