CurieuzeNeuzen in the Garden
Interactive maps for Belgium's largest citizen science project on heat: 4,400 lawn sensors mapped the urban heat island effect across Flanders.
CurieuzeNeuzen in de Tuin was Belgium's largest citizen science project on heat. Between April and October 2021, 4,400 citizens, schools, businesses and municipalities planted a lawn sensor in their garden, playground or park to measure temperature and drought, supplemented by 600 measurement points at potato farms and nature reserves.
Frederik De Bleser designed and built the interactive maps that formed the core of the project: a live temperature map of all measurement points, a map of temperature differences by municipality, and animated maps showing the nighttime cooling pattern hour by hour. Those maps made the urban heat island effect visible at this scale for the first time: while the countryside cools quickly at night, cities keep sweating. In Antwerp, the difference reached 6 degrees.
Building on that data and those maps, Tina and I created a longread with animated dot maps and temperature curves on the urban heat island effect.
- Frederik De Bleser Interactive maps
- Ine Renson Text
- Tina Boeykens Production & information design
- Andy Stevens Production & information design