How to Scale Up Heat Mitigation

With extreme heat becoming a severe health risk in more U.S. cities, local governments are looking for ways to mitigate its impacts at larger scales, reports Ysabelle Kempe in Smart Cities Dive. “Five cities —  Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, New Orleans and Columbia, South Carolina — will participate in a three-year project to scale up the adoption of surfaces that reduce urban heat, the nonprofit Smart Surfaces Coalition announced Thursday.”

The project is aimed at reducing barriers to scaling up heat mitigation projects to make a difference at the neighborhood level. “The coalition’s analysis of citywide ‘smart surfaces’ adoption in Baltimore found that the strategy could cool the city by 5 degrees Fahrenheit and provide more than $10 in cost savings for every $1 spent.”

Kurt Shickman, director of extreme heat initiatives at the Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center, explains the challenges, saying, “a city may not be able to plant trees where they would provide the most value if the land is private property or owned by, say, a water utility or public transportation authority. Shickman suggested that cities could develop incentives or even regulation to encourage cooling changes to the built environment.”

The Smart Surfaces Coalition says it can fund ten projects and welcomes applications from more cities.