Evaluating Urban Heat Mitigation across Networks of Plans

Cities must equitably plan for heat resilience as heat risks increase but lack integrated approaches to coordinate strategies across community plans and prioritize heat mitigation for the most vulnerable communities. We adapted the Plan Integration for Resilience Scorecard (TM) (PIRS (TM)) methodology, originally developed for flood hazards, to heat and piloted it in five geographically diverse U.S. cities. We used PIRS (TM) for Heat to analyze how policies across community plans would affect urban heat and compared spatial patterns in policy attention with indicators of vulnerability. We find that heat mitigation policies are not targeting the highest heat risk areas.

Automated summary

As heat risks increase, cities need to plan for heat resilience in an equitable manner, but lack integrated approaches to coordinate strategies and prioritize vulnerable communities. The study finds that current heat mitigation policies are not targeting the areas with the highest heat risks.