Heat waves and Heat islands

Hi @Mohamed El Raey! I know that there is a lot of work ongoing in this area so hopefully others will chip in. For now, we have some resources on weADAPT that may be of interest:

Green Infrastructure is a key strategy for reducing heat stress, particularly in cities. You can find an introduction to green infrastructure here. An example of this is Rooftop Farming to reduce heat stress.

This article on Engaging the Private Sector in Green Infrastructure Development and Financing has a link to USAID's GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE RESOURCE GUIDE, which has a chapter (8) on reducing urban heat islands.

The European Green Capital Network 'Future-proof Toolkit' for cities and the Green Book: Adapting South African settlements to climate change, and SOLUTIONS IN FOCUS: Ecosystem-Based Adaptation from Mountains to Oceans (and the PANORAMA Solution platform it links to) also have some strategies - you will need to explore these resources to find them but they are quite rich in content.

With regards to planning and implementing heat stress reduction strategies for cities this article may also be of interest: Building a Climate-Resilient City: The built environment.

Hope this helps and I look forward to reading what others think on this subject.

If it is within a plot of land where there is a proposal for a building make sure that you factor in all passive strategies to reduce the heat island namely high SRI paintings on the roof and walls, green roofs, adequate and relevant green infrastructure which may inlcude vegetation, pervious paving all suitably planned. These will go a long way in reducing the heat island and further add value in terms of reduciong the operational expenses of the building. Also encourage this practice with the neighbours and the community for a profound impact

Hi Mohamed, you can find a "How to adapt your city to extreme heat" here. More information also on the newly launched (and still developing) C40 Knowledge Hub on different cooling tecqniques and policies.

Julia's and Amanda's comments and links provide excellent resources that should help answer your question, Mohamed. There are numerous EU funded projects that are looking at this problem. A new project that had its kick-off meeting at the beginning of October is REGREEN. It will be looking at Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) to climate change adaptation (more than just heat islands). The overall aim of REGREEN is to promote urban liveability, by systematically modelling and combining ecosystem services and biodiversity as the basis for NBS that can be widely deployed by public and private actors. In the project are five cities: Aarhus (DK), Paris / Ile de France (FR), Velika Gorica (HR), Beijing (CN), Shanghai (CN) and Ningbo (CN) that are living labs. As the project has just started there is no website (yet). I will send a link when the website is up and running.

Neil

In fact, blue-green infrastructure (more comprehensive than just green - as it includes water bodies) is the way forward. Make sure the measures are connected, include wetlands, which not only have cooling functions but also many other services.

example:

In Colombo, the wetlands and surrounding areas are on average 10°C cooler than no-pervious areas (e.g. parking areas) at the hottest time of the day, resulting in energy savings for artificial cooling systems.

Julie Rozenberg, Matthew Simpson, Laura Bonzanigo, Mook Bangalore, Lahiru Prasanga. Wetlands Conservation and Management: a New Model for Urban Resilience in Colombo<https://reliefweb.int/report/sri-lanka/urban-wetlands-management-colombo-new-model-urban-resilience>. World Bank, November, 2015.