https://doi.org/10.1140/epjds/s13688-026-00652-3
Research
Remote sensing and GPS mobility reveal heat’s impact on human activity across diverse climates
1
Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, University College London, London, UK
2
Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, KU Leuven University, Leuven, Belgium
3
Development Impact Group, World Bank, Washington, DC, US
a
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Received:
30
September
2025
Accepted:
25
March
2026
Published online:
15
April
2026
Abstract
Extreme heat is a growing threat to both individual livelihoods and broader economies, killing a growing number of people each year as temperatures rise in many parts of the world and limiting productivity. Many studies document the link between heat waves and mortality or morbidity, and others explore the economic consequences of them, but few are able to determine how populations respond to the shock of extreme heat in day-to-day activity. Toward this end, we investigate how ambient heat affects urban activity, measured as the number of trips ending in a geohash cell per day and by time of day. In India and Mexico, extreme heat suppresses activity by up to 10% in the afternoon. Indonesia has a narrower temperature distribution; within the observed range the response is flatter, consistent with acclimatization and limited identified heat effects. We also examine the shape of the relationship, finding that while heat reduces activity, very hot days and very long heat waves may induce behavioral adaptations, including shifting activity into the evening. Effects are stronger in poorer areas. Twinning these models with climate projections, we show that without adaptation mobility may fall 1-2% per year on aggregate, with certain seasons and places seeing activity fall by as much as 10%. According to our estimates, small cities face the largest relative reductions (percent change in trips), while large cities experience the largest absolute reductions (the number of trips displaced or foregone).
Key words: Extreme heat / Human mobility / Remote sensing / Climate change / Heat adaptation / Urban resilience / Socioeconomic inequality
Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1140/epjds/s13688-026-00652-3.
Handling Editor: Kyriaki Kalimeri
© The Author(s) 2026
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.
