Urban Heat Island & Climate Resiliency Participatory Planning & Action toolkit

Environmental Justice Principles

Robert Bullard, known as the "father of environmental justice," described the movement as "trying to address all of the inequities that result from human settlement, industrial facility siting and industrial development."

Delegates to the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit held on October 24-27, 1991, in Washington DC, drafted and adopted 17 principles of Environmental Justice. The California Environmental Justice Alliance summarized the following environmental justice principles for policy implementation:

• Prioritize and value prevention, human health, and improving quality of life.
• Prioritize [vulnerable] communities
• Meaningful community engagement
• Responsiveness
• Transparency
• Accountability
• Proactive partnerships

The 1995 Chicago heat wave increased public awareness of heat as an environmental justice issue. More than 700 people - the majority of whom were African-Americans, older adults, and low-income residents - died over the course of 5 days of record high temperatures:

Urban Heat Island effect has also been shown to be worse in formerly redlined neighborhoods:

Citizen Participation Strategies

A number of tools and strategies can be used to support citizen participation around the issue of urban heat islands or other matters of climate resiliency. Here are a few examples (click on the links for "how to" guides):

• Surveys: collect data on demographics, knowledge, attitudes, behaviors and open-ended feedback with written or online surveys.
• Interviews: collect in-depth information with key informant interviews.
• Public forum: a public forum or hearing may be a formal meeting for receiving testimony from the public at large on a local issue, or proposed government action.
• Panel discussions: a live or virtual discussion about a specific topic amongst a selected group of panelists who share differing perspectives in front of a larger audience.
• Roundtable discussions: A roundtable discussion is a conversation on a single topic held between a relatively small group of perhaps 8 to 10 people.
• PhotoVoice: Photovoice is a process in which people – usually those with limited power due to poverty, language barriers, race, class, ethnicity, gender, culture, or other circumstances – use video and/or photo images to capture aspects of their environment and experiences and share them with others.
• Community taskforces: once a need or problem is identified, a community taskforce or action committee can be formed comprised of community members and agencies that work toward resolving the problem.
• Digital engagement tools: digital and online engagement tools can include interactive maps, project landing pages, idea walls, surveys, forums & more!

Living With Heat Charrette

ULI Boston/New England convened a Living With Heat (LWH) charrette to develop strategies to deal with the immediate threats to communities during extreme heat events, as well as devise design solutions to mitigate the impact of the rising temperatures predicted by 2070.

Steps for Conducting a LWH Charrette:

1. Preparation: determine scope, budget and schedule, and conduct stakeholder identification, problem identification, baseline data development, SWOT analysis, and GIS mapping.
2. Site selection: in addition to including prototypical examples of the UHI effect in various settings, try to select sites undergoing significant commercial and/or residential development or redevelopment as this represents a prime opportunity for offering recommendations for forming strategies to combat extreme heat in the near and long term.
3. Team formation: for each site, assemble interdisciplinary teams of residents, business owners, church leaders, community advocates, and professionals with expertise in development, urban planning, landscape architecture, environmental justice and sustainability.
4. Hold charrette: using community asset mapping, windshield/walking survey, prioritization mapping (dot voting), and other participating techniques, ask attendees to address the following questions: Who/what is at risk during extreme heat days? What is your vision for the site in the next 50 years (2070) What has been done to mitigate heat islands in your neighborhood? What resources do you currently use during heat events? Which UHI mitigation and adaptation strategies do you hope to see prioritized?
5. Implementation & evaluation: develop interventions, put your solution into practice, determine evaluation plan, and evaluate the initiative.

Be sure to check out Next City's list of 5 Ways Planners Get Charrettes Wrong to avoid some common pitfalls!

Incentives for Citizen Participation

Best practices for citizen participation call for the use of incentives as a way to value participants' time and effort, considering that time spent on citizen participation is time away from work, family and other obligations. In addition, there may be costs associated with citizen participation, such as babysitting and transport. Consider how you can show gratitude and appreciation throughout the citizen participation process. Here are a few examples of possible incentives:

• Catered meal(s) during the participatory meeting/process
• Complementary accommodation (if they need to stay overnight)
• Complementary childcare during meeting/process
• Post-session happy hour or entertainment
• Gift cards
• Gas vouchers
• Free tours/cruise
• Free books/resources
• Free "swag" (bag, sun visor, shirt, cellphone accessory, etc.)
• Donation(s) to an organization of the participant's choice
• Throw a party
• Hold an awards ceremony
• Honor community champions

Citizen Science Strategies:

The following are steps for conducing a successful citizen science campaign (click the links for additional details):

1. Scope Your Problem: know your tools, engage your stakeholders and participants, know where your project fits, and get approval.
2. Design a Project: know your objectives, determine your resources, plan project management, and finalize logistics.
3. Build a Community: know your community partners, engage your community, acknowledge achievements, and consider socio-cultural issues.
4. Manage Your Data: acquire, process, analyze, share, and preserve data.
5. Sustain and Improve: communicate effectively and evaluate the process and outcomes.

UHI Citizen Science Spotlight: 2020 Urban Heat Island Community Science Campaign with NOAA - during one of the hottest days of the year in each of the participating cities, citizen volunteers drive prescribed routes in the morning, afternoon, and evening with custom-engineered heat sensors mounted on their own cars, recording temperature and humidity, as well as the exact time and location along the route.

Houston in the News: Houston hosted CAPA Strategies' largest Heat Watch campaign of 2020:

For more information on how to conduct a heat watch campaign, check out CAPA Heat Watch:

Built Environment Intervention Strategies

The following are built environment strategies for urban heat island mitigation and adaptation (click on the links for more information about their use, installation, and benefits):

• Cool Roofs
• Green Roofs
• Green Walls
• Cool Pavements
• Cool Bus Stops
• Tree Canopy
• Pocket Parks
• Splash Pools
• Green Corridors
• Complete Streets
• Solar Parking Canopies
• Cooling Centers

Spotlight: Beat the Heat is a map of places in Houston where people can visit to stay cool, such as libraries, pools, and community centers. It also displays a layer showing a model simulation of the average summer high temperatures.

Case Studies & Best Practices

• Houston, Texas: developing an online climate adaptation toolkit—adapt2climate.org—to serve as a potential model of strategic planning for other metropolitan areas.
• Richmond, Virginia: using citizen scientists to map urban heat island effects.
• Chicago, Illinois: expanding the urban tree canopy.
• Sandhills, North Carolina: developing an early warning system to prevent heat illness.
• Las Cruces, New Mexico: investing in green infrastructure in a historically underserved neighborhood.
• Long Beach, California: developing a citizen's guide to building climate resiliency.

Chicago's Green Infrastructure Initiative

New York City's CoolRoofs Program

Additional Resources (Houston)

Houston, Texas, is leading the way in addressing climate resiliency. Mayor Sylvester Turner is co-chair of Climate Mayors and Houston is a member of C40, a global network of large cities taking action to address climate change.

• Houston Harris Heat Action Team (H3AT): a diverse team of stakeholders working to map and address urban heat island effects in Houston.
• Resilient Houston: a framework for collective action to mitigate flooding risk and improve climate readiness.
• Houston Climate Action Plan: a science-based, community-driven plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, achieve carbon neutrality, and lead the global energy transition.
• Houston Advanced Research Center: a nonprofit research hub providing independent analysis on energy, air, and water issues to people seeking scientific answers.
• Cool Houston Plan: a 2004 plan for built environment interventions to reduce urban heat, including painting roofs, adding green roofs, using cool paving, and spearheading city-wide strategic tree planting.
• Houston Cool Roof Guidelines: guidelines from Houston Public Works.