NEOM

NEOM is a remarkable concept and project which realistically has very little chance of coming to fruition because of the sheer scale of its conception and the cost of building materials and the actual reality of the location where it is.

The website is full of promise.

It promises:


No roads, cars or emissions, it will run on 100% renewable energy and 95% of land will be preserved for nature. People's health and wellbeing will be prioritized over transportation and infrastructure, unlike traditional cities. Only 200 meters wide, but 170 kilometers long and 500 meters above sea level.

The Line will eventually accommodate 9 million people and will be built on a footprint of just 34 square kilometers. This will mean a reduced infrastructure footprint, creating never-before-seen efficiencies in city functions. The ideal climate all-year-round will ensure that residents can enjoy the surrounding nature. Residents will also have access to all facilities within a five-minute walk, in addition to high-speed rail – with an end-to-end transit of 20 minutes.

Here is another view:

Will be fascinating to watch what happens next...

The hottest places to live #1

This BBC article looks at people living in the hottest parts of the country.

This is defined by a data set which is called the Heat Hazard Score.

They are made for the OS by a company called 4 Earth Intelligence.

The potential heat hazard score for small geographical areas - known as a Lower Layer Super Output Areas (LSOA) - was calculated by 4 Earth Intelligence, who measured the average land surface temperature over a sample of days in the past three summers across Great Britain.

Deprivation data was taken from the latest English, Scottish and Welsh Indices of multiple deprivation (IMD). Each IMD is the nation's official measure of relative deprivation, or poverty, and is weighted heavily towards income, employment, education, and health.

The scores range from one to five, and provide an indicator of how likely it is that an area will experience high temperatures during hot weather, when compared with other areas in the surrounding neighbourhood.

As the BBC article explains, there are certain things factored into the calculation, such as the presence of water and vegetation.

A statistical method was used to standardise land surface temperatures, which involved combining satellite images for different dates over the past three years. The temperature data was then adjusted to consider the different average temperatures of each region, to highlight hotter areas across the country, while accounting for varying climates. Five is the highest score.

Normalising the temperatures of each region before calculating the score means the data highlights hotter areas in different parts of the country, despite having different climates.

This ONS report, one of several which were produced during COVID, explained that one in eight houses has no garden. This means no opportunity for shaded outside space...

It would be great to have a subset of data available for educational purposes, perhaps for a city such as Leeds which has a river and parks, and is also an OCR A/B Case Study city.