The exposure of slums to high temperature: Morphology-based local scale thermal patterns.

Heat exposure has become a global threat to human health and life with increasing temperatures and frequency of extreme heat events. Considering risk as a function of both heat vulnerability and hazard intensity, this study examines whether poor urban dwellers residing in slums are exposed to higher temperature, adding to their vulnerable demographic and health conditions. Instead of being restricted by sampling size of pixels or other land surface zones, this study follows the intrinsic latent patterns of the heat phenomenon to examine the association between small clusters of slums and heat patterns.