PRIMER FOR COOL CITIES: REDUCING EXCESSIVE URBAN HEAT
Cities face increasing temperatures due to urbanization and global climate change. The adverse effects of temperature rise profoundly affect urban life. Safeguarding people from extreme heat emerges as a pivotal challenge in twenty-first-century resilience and sustainability efforts. Effective implementation of strategies to cool cities yields manifold benefits, encompassing health, well-being, productivity, air quality, and energy systems.
Immediate deployment of urban cooling solutions can help alleviate the risks associated with escalating urban temperatures. This guide, along with its Cool City Case Studies Annex, furnishes practical, actionable directives and instances for those tasked with mitigating urban heat impacts—be they implementers, policymakers, or planners. The discourse encompasses:
■ The ramifications of escalating temperatures for cities and urban design at large
■ Measures and remedies applicable at building, community, and city levels to mitigate excessive heat and foster thermal comfort
■ The advantages of a comprehensive rollout of urban cooling solutions on a large scale
■ A framework for an inclusive approach to devising urban cooling strategies
■ The merits of heat action plans aimed at safeguarding residents during extreme temperature spells
■ Instances, outcomes, and suggestions from worldwide implementations of urban cooling policies and measures.
Viable solutions exist to aid cities in addressing temperature hikes. Just as rising heat poses diverse and significant challenges to urban living, there are widespread societal benefits arising from adopting measures to cool urban areas. Cooler cities yield positive outcomes on human health, air quality, productivity, education, tourism, public safety, energy consumption, and quality of life. Cities can counter rising air temperatures by embracing a blend of urban cooling solutions expounded upon in Section 3 of the primer.
There exists an imperative to transition from prevailing technologies, materials, and designs defining our cities toward the cooling solutions delineated in Figure ES-1. Choices made by cities regarding urban development locations, methods, and employed technologies and materials can have lasting repercussions, extending from years (as seen in building infrastructure) to centuries (as observed in urban design and planning).
Source:
https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/605601595393390081/pdf/Primer-for-Cool-Cities-Reducing-Excessive-Urban-Heat-with-a-Focus-on-Passive-Measures.pdf
