The Australian Bureau of Statistics’ 2016 Index of Relative Socio-economic Disadvantage scores were compared against the urban heat island effect of all 27 ‘city’ local government areas in metropolitan Melbourne in Victoria, Australia. It found a correlation between disadvantage and urban heat.

15 of the 16 variables that generated the Index of Relative Socio-economic Disadvantage were then calculated and compared against the urban heat island effect for those same local government areas. It found correlations between urban heat and four variables including people with low household income.

The equivalised income of each household in those local government areas as reported in the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ 2016 Census was then compared against the urban heat island effect. It found a strong correlation between high incomes and low urban heat and vice versa. For example, households in the lowest bracket earning $1 to $7,799 each year live in an area with an urban heat island effect of 8.77 degrees celsius compared to 8.17 degrees celsius for households in the highest bracket earning $156,000 or more each year.

The implications for policy-makers responsible for addressing urban heat are that data should be used to target interventions at local government areas with high levels of disadvantage and high urban heat island effect. For example, the City of Brimbank has the highest UHI effect (+10.75 degrees celsius) in Melbourne and the second lowest IRSD score (921).