Urban heat is an increasingly pressing urban challenge with negative implications for everyday life and quality of life. In dense, inner-city areas with limited green and open spaces, hot summer periods are especially burdensome. In contrast to objective heat measurements, subjective heat perceptions can more accurately reflect the heat experiences of urban dwellers in their everyday environments and facilitate the understanding of actual heat exposure. This publication presents the results of a digital participatory mapping survey about places of perceived heat and cooling in the 15th district of Vienna (Rudolfsheim-Fünfhaus) during the summer of 2024 and discusses the added value of subjective, contextualized, and citizen-produced data on heat exposure in climate-sensitive urban planning practice.
