Project Description:
The University of Maryland, College Park (UMD) has seen a significant increase in the intensity and frequency of excessive heat conditions in recent years. These heat waves pose a threat to the safety of the UMD community and are capable of disrupting critical campus operations. These disruptions can bear financial consequences, including the delay of much of the 834 million dollars in 2023 research grants awarded to UMD. The Office of Emergency Management and Business Continuity at UMD hopes to address these challenges with an informed, specialized decision matrix to employ during excessive heat events. Our capstone team developed the decision matrix for use during both the hot summer months and “one-off” days of excessive heat during the school year when the campus is highly populated. The decision matrix works by recommending protective actions to be taken by the university that will ensure the safety of the community and preserve the continuity of campus operations whenever feasible. Protective actions are determined by both the severity of the heat conditions (as determined by local NOAA Heat Index value readings) and the population on campus being considered (i.e. students and faculty, facilities management staff, athletics, etc.). Recommendations and created heat index “thresholds” for the decision matrix are determined by our research of federal, state, academic, and private sources.
Additionally, our decision matrix has been augmented to include an online tool which will track internal use by UMD leadership and provide recommendations in an easy to understand, input based format. Potential physical heat relief tools, such as cooling towels, fans, and electrolyte mixes, have also been recommended to UMD leadership with positives and negatives listed. We believe that our decision matrix and recommended tools will provide a foundation upon which the UMD Office of Emergency Management and Business Continuity can build a heat-resilient College Park for years to come.
