How is extreme heat experienced and how can it be measured? There are a variety of methods and approaches to measure heat, from satellites, mobile transects, stationary observations, to wearable sensors. Each can provide important information and context to the urban heat effect and its impact. Extreme heat is a subtle hazard that is felt differently across the nation. This session will highlight the range of experience of heat across the US.

Mapping the heat hazard is an important first step to understanding where to start addressing heat health issues in a city, but risk also involves exposure and vulnerability. This session will feature communities that have taken the next step after a UHI mapping program to factor in population, demographics, and health information to detail where the most at-risk residents live, to characterize their risk factors, and to guide appropriate interventions to manage those risks.

The power of the Pen: Policies, Standards, Codes, Laws, Incentives, Subsidies, Bylaws, Protocols, Regulations for UHI Risk Management This session will focus on what actions have teeth. Beyond including heat in planning documents, what concrete policies can be put in place in municipalities to ensure that heat risk reduction actually happens - and how are they enforced? What are strategic partnerships that can be made to effect these policies? What climate and other data is needed to set thresholds and evaluate, enforce action/compliance? This session will feature resources from EPA as well as case studies from Washington D.C. and Denver, Colorado that show the many policy instruments possible for moving communities in a heat resilient direction.

This session will feature communities that have implemented solutions to make their built environment cooler and more resilient to heat. A common action to manage urban heat risk is increasing the albedo of surfaces - rooftops, streets, sidewalks, and walls - but cities have a variety of options to choose from to provide indoor and outdoor thermal comfort. The session will provide resources and suggestions for participants just getting started thinking about which cool solutions in the built environment can be part of their portfolio of actions to mitigate urban heat risk.

One of the most popular interventions is planting trees, and creating accessible green spaces and water features to mitigate heat, long term. This session will cover tree canopy assessment, planting and cooling strategies, combined with strengthening community cohesion and resiliency. Threaded throughout is the intersection with environmental justice, public health, crime reduction, and equitable approaches to improvements that benefit current residents.

Essential to our ability to advance heat mitigation actions is effective engagement of communities, institutions, politicians, and the press. Such inter-sectoral networks offer a means for socializing the concept of urban heat specifically, and also advancing a collaborative governance model for climate adaptation more generally. Though what are promising and effective practices for developing collaborative networks in urban heat planning? How might municipal agencies partner with community-based organizations, universities, and other regional institutions to increase the likelihood of heat mitigation planning? Join us for an insightful discussion with three municipal managers who are engaging in collaborative approaches to urban heat planning, and identify ways that may be helpful for your climate outreach efforts. 

While many communities are developing strategies to mitigate and manage heat, these efforts are often siloed, lack coordination, and have unclear evaluation criteria. To better address increasing heat risk, communities must prioritize and integrate heat across their network of plans which includes comprehensive plans, climate action plans, hazard mitigation plans, heat response plans, and emergency management plans. This session will provide examples of innovative cities that have worked to address chronic and acute heat risk across their network of plans, better connecting traditionally siloed disciplines to improve their heat planning efforts.