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Urban heat

During heat waves, the highest temperatures are often found in urbanized areas.

By 2070, 3.5 billion people will be heavily affected by heat, 1.6 billion of whom will live in urban areas (Chi Xu et al. 2020). Rising temperatures can negatively impact vulnerable people, workers, infrastructure and even GDP.

As the world warms, there is an urgent need to find ways to prevent the worst. Heat is a growing global challenge for communities large and small, across every development context, and requires collaboration amongst a wide array of disciplines and topic areas.

The uban heat island effect explained.
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Integrating three plan evaluation approaches for coordinated heat resilience in cities across the Arizona urban corridor thumbnail
Documents and publications
Integrating three plan evaluation approaches for coordinated heat resilience in cities across the Arizona urban corridor

This study examines how cities across the Arizona urban corridor incorporate heat resilience into their networks of plans, using an integrated assessment approach. The researchers applied three complementary plan evaluation methods.

Elsevier
Urbanization erodes heat resilience across Chinese cities thumbnail
Documents and publications
Urbanization erodes heat resilience across Chinese cities

This study aims to systematically reveal the nexus among urban heat resilience, urban-scale expansion, and land-cover transformation in 70 rapidly urbanizing Chinese cities

Elsevier
Escaping the heat: urban heat resilience and public cool spaces thumbnail
Documents and publications
Escaping the heat: urban heat resilience and public cool spaces

This paper analyses London’s Cool Spaces scheme, finding a misalignment between policy intentions and real-world use, with depoliticisation and structural vulnerabilities undermining its effectiveness as a long-term urban heat resilience strategy.

Springer Nature
Extreme heat is a slow-onset and unequal urban disaster thumbnail
Documents and publications
Extreme heat is a slow-onset and unequal urban disaster

This report highlights extreme heat as an unequal urban disaster in India and Asia, detailing impacts on informal workers and urban poor, and calls for preventive, equity-focused responses like early warnings and participatory action plans.

All India Disaster Mitigation Institute
Update
Britain's cities are heating up and trapping more heat

New analysis from Ordnance Survey has found more than eight in ten cities in Great Britain are already highly vulnerable to urban heat islands, and almost two thirds are set to reach severe heat vulnerability by the turn of the century.

Ordnance Survey
Divergence between physical and emotional heat resilience in Chinese cities thumbnail
Documents and publications
Divergence between physical and emotional heat resilience in Chinese cities

Using social media and meteorological data, this study quantifies the mismatch between physical heat exposure and public emotional responses from 2010 to 2024 in China.

Nature Climate Change
heat-action-plan-hap-toolkit_june-2026_v2.pdf thumbnail
Documents and publications
Heat Action Plan (HAP) Toolkit: From heat risk assessment to city-level action

This toolkit provides a practical, step-by-step framework to support cities, urban local governments, planners, practitioners, and community stakeholders in developing and implementing Heat Action Plans (HAPs) to address the growing risks of extreme heat.

Sustainedge
Update
Paris, Milan and Phoenix: Heat has us all facing the same question

Three cities are learning from each other about how to protect residents. These climate policies are also public health measures.

Guardian, the (UK)
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