Urban Lidar and Environmental Health

This Research Topic aims to advance the use of lidar remote sensing to understand and address the impact of urban form on environmental health, with a focus on heat exposure, air quality, and green space access. We seek to bring together researchers applying ground-based, airborne, and satellite lidar to connect fine-resolution 3D urban structure with population health outcomes, and to support evidence-based urban planning and public health policy.Rapid urbanization and population growth are reshaping the built environment in ways that directly affect human health, from urban heat exposure to green space access and air pollution corridors. Under a rapidly warming climate, extreme heat events are occurring worldwide with increasing frequency and intensity. According to the US NOAA National Weather Service, heat-related illnesses and fatalities exceed those from any other weather disaster in the United States. The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control and the World Health Organization report that the May-June 2026 heatwave in Europe claimed more than 10,000 lives, with 9,000 among people aged 65 and above; the United States faced a comparable, though less severe, heat-related disaster later that summer. A persistent challenge for the urban boundary-layer (UBL) meteorology research community is the limited ability to predict how UBL features evolve and interact with underlying meteorological conditions to drive heat-related mortality. Lidar remote sensing, combined with collocated measurements of atmospheric conditions, pollutants, and tracers, offers unmatched precision in capturing 3D urban structure, including building density and height, vegetation canopy cover, surface topography, and urban heat island patterns, at fine spatial resolution.We welcome contributions applying ground-based, airborne, and/or satellite-borne lidar measurements to environmental health questions in cities. Relevant topics include, but are not limited to:Urban heat island mapping and thermal exposure riskGreen infrastructure and canopy cover assessment for public health outcomesWalkability and exposure modeling using 3D urban formIntegration of lidar with air quality or epidemiological dataMulti-sensor fusion (e.g., lidar and optical/thermal imagery)Multi-instrument observations (e.g., towers, lidars, sodars, UAS) of UBL features for environmental health monitoringWe encourage submissions spanning methodological advances, case studies, and policy-relevant applications that link high-resolution urban structural data to population health and environmental equity outcomes. Original Research, Reviews, and Perspective articles are welcome. Topic editors: Sandip Pal, Temple Lee Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/85318/urban-lidar-and-environmental-health