FIFA 2026 Heat Risk Observatory : An interactive dashboard mapping heat stress risks for the workers making the World Cup possible

An interactive dashboard mapping heat stress risks for the workers making the World Cup possible

Behind every stadium, training facility, and match-day spectacle are workers building, maintaining, securing, cleaning, transporting, and servicing the FIFA World Cup 2026.

Equidem’s FIFA 2026 Heat Risk Observatory, developed in collaboration with students from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, makes visible one of the most serious and predictable risks facing these workers: dangerous occupational heat exposure.

The dashboard allows users to explore heat stress risks across FIFA 2026 host venues, compare locations, examine dangerous heat windows, and understand why stronger worker protections are urgently needed.

EXPLORE THE DASHBOARD NOW
 

About the dashboard

The FIFA 2026 Heat Risk Observatory is an interactive data tool that tracks and visualises heat exposure risks across World Cup-linked venues in the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

The dashboard uses Wet Bulb Globe Temperature (WBGT), an internationally recognised occupational heat stress measure that combines air temperature, humidity, solar radiation, and wind. Unlike air temperature alone, WBGT gives a clearer picture of what heat means for the human body during physical work.

Using historical climate data and venue-specific construction and preparation periods, the dashboard identifies when and where workers may face dangerous heat conditions. It allows users to compare stadiums, review monthly heat risk patterns, examine extreme heat events, and understand how risk changes depending on surface conditions, workload, and work-rest assumptions.

Why this matters

Public debate around extreme heat and the World Cup often focuses on players, fans, and match scheduling. But many of the people most exposed to heat are workers who prepare the tournament long before kick-off and continue working after spectators leave.

Construction workers, maintenance crews, transport workers, security guards, cleaners, hospitality workers, turf workers, and others may spend long hours outdoors or in poorly ventilated conditions, often under pressure to meet tight deadlines. For migrant, racialised, undocumented, subcontracted, or low-wage workers, the risks can be even greater because speaking up may carry the threat of job loss, retaliation, immigration consequences, or exclusion from future work.

Equidem’s research shows that heat risk is not an accident — it is foreseeable, measurable, and preventable. The question is whether FIFA, host governments, contractors, sponsors, and other stakeholders will act before workers are harmed.

How to read the dashboard

Start with the General tab for a full overview of host venues and major risk patterns.

Use the Stadium tab to examine a specific venue, including peak WBGT, average WBGT, days above threshold, highest-risk month, monthly heat risk, and worst historical heat events.

Use the Scenario Settings panel to understand how risk changes depending on:

• surface environment, such as grass/turf or concrete;
• analysis period, such as full period or construction period;
• typical versus extreme heat analysis;
• workload category, such as light, moderate, or heavy work;
• work-rest regime;
• temperature unit.

The Heat Risk Limit shown in the dashboard is not fixed. It changes depending on the selected assumptions, especially workload and rest regime.

The Time Above Heat Limit section shows when modelled WBGT conditions exceeded the selected safety threshold.

This does not prove that every worker was present at every hour shown, or that an injury occurred. It identifies periods when environmental heat conditions created elevated occupational risk and where protections should have been in place.

What must happen now

Equidem calls on FIFA and all tournament stakeholders to take urgent action.

FIFA must accept responsibility for every worker connected to the World Cup, including those employed through contractors, subcontractors, staffing agencies, suppliers, and service providers.

Host governments, host cities, stadium authorities, contractors, and tournament partners must adopt and enforce binding heat protections, including stop-work thresholds, paid rest breaks, water, shade, cooling measures, medical support, and full pay during weather-related shutdowns.

Workers and their organisations must be central to monitoring, reporting, and remedy systems. No worker should have to choose between their health and their wages, or between raising a concern and keeping their job.

The World Cup should stand for dignity, unity, and shared joy. That cannot be true if the people making the tournament possible are left to work in dangerous heat without protection, voice, or remedy.