Getting Started with UEHIS
The Urban Ecosystem Health Intelligence System (UEHIS) is an authoritative scientific cartographic workstation and spatial computing platform designed for Pune, India. Developed in partnership with the SEER Bharat Foundation, UEHIS shifts environmental discourse into verifiable, sub-kilometer biophysical accounting.
The central operational index is the Urban Ecosystem Health Index (UEHI)—a normalized composite index scored on a scale from 0 to 100 (where lower indicates healthier conditions), projected in EPSG:32643 UTM Zone 43N.
Understanding the Homepage
The homepage serves as the institutional gateway to Pune's biophysical baseline. It features an interactive hero map stage, live municipal summary metrics (total blocks, mean UEHI, carbon stock, canopy coverage), and a 6-factor methodology breakdown.
Review citywide totals: 5,309 grid blocks, 493.1k t CO₂e carbon stock, and 21.51 km² tree canopy area.
Use quick locality chips (Baner, Kothrud, Hadapsar, Viman Nagar, Hinjawadi) to instantly navigate to focal zones.
Using the Explore Map
The /explore workspace is the primary geospatial interface. Built on MapLibre GL with GPU-accelerated vector tiles (/tiles/uehi/...), it renders Pune's 5,309 blocks with smooth pan, zoom, and continuous data querying.
• Basemap Switcher: Toggle between high-contrast Carto Light vector basemap and true-color Sentinel-2 satellite imagery.
• Layer Stack: Enable or disable UEHI score choropleths, carbon density overlays, and candidate planting units.
• Four-Tier Risk Legend: Low (<45), Moderate (45-60), High (60-75), Severe (>75).
Understanding a Block (250m × 250m)
Clicking any grid cell activates the Block Attribution Inspector dock. Every 250m × 250m cell provides:
Calibrated score (0-100) and risk tier badge.
Tree density, NDVI, impervious surface fraction, land surface temperature (°C), PM2.5, and population exposure.
Calculated carbon stock (t CO₂e), mean canopy height (m), and estimated tree count.
Centroid geodetic coordinates (WGS84 lat/lng and UTM Zone 43N northing/easting) with one-click clipboard copying.
Searching for a Location
The search bar in the GIS sidebar provides autocomplete geocoding. Enter ward names, neighborhood landmarks, or coordinates to fly the camera directly to that location with optimal zoom and highlight bounds.
Study-Area Spatial Analysis
When selecting custom study areas, wards, or bounding polygons, the system executes real-time planar topological clipping and re-aggregates the composite index using exact area weighting:
UEHI_area = ∑(UEHI_i × intersection_area_i) / ∑(intersection_area_i)The report details the scorable surface fraction, 4-tier risk distribution, recomputed carbon stock, and candidate planting opportunities.
Carbon Stock Scientific Assessment
The /carbon page provides a dedicated biophysical assessment of Pune's vegetative carbon reservoir. Grounded in ETH Global Canopy Height 2020 and Sentinel-2 segmentation, it quantifies total standing carbon at 493.1k t CO₂e (±7.79% CI).
Standing carbon stock represents currently stored above-ground and below-ground biomass, NOT annual future sequestration.
Planting Opportunities & Field Protocol
The /planting workspace visualizes candidate planting units derived from unbuilt, non-road, non-water surfaces. Every candidate unit enforces a strict 10-metre iso-radial spacing constraint.
Municipal Cadastre Notice: All points represent potential theoretical opportunities. Site tenure, utility easements, and permissions are unknown and require site-level engineering surveys.
Systemic Intervention Scenarios
The /scenarios sandbox models three strategic tracks: 100K Units (corridor infill), 250K Units (public easement expansion), and 500K Units (saturated intervention). Each track projects mean UEHI improvements and standing carbon gains using an illustrative 0.5 t CO₂e/unit assumption.
Methodology & Data Provenance
Access the full peer-reviewed methodology at /methodology. Model weights are frozen under pune_unet_segmentation_FROZEN_2026 with verified cryptographic hashing to ensure multi-year audit reproducibility.
Limitations & Uncertainty Boundaries
Users must account for remote sensing revisit cycles (5-16 days), monsoonal cloud masking, and subterranean infrastructure limitations when using UEHIS data for municipal policymaking.
Scientific Glossary & Standards
• AGB / BGB: Above-Ground and Below-Ground Biomass.
• EPSG:32643: UTM Zone 43N projected coordinate reference system.
• LST: Land Surface Temperature (°C) derived from Landsat 8 TIRS.
• NDVI: Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (Band 8 - Band 4)/(Band 8 + Band 4).
• PM2.5: Atmospheric particulate matter ≤ 2.5 microns (μg/m³).