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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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Moscow citizens rest at a city park with a fountain
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CityMetrics dashboard helps cities understand and reduce climate risks

The new CityMetrics site from WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities offers an interactive dashboard where users can explore key urban indicators and geospatial datasets from more than 60 cities that WRI works with.

World Resources Institute
Building resilience to heat in the city of Athens thumbnail
Documents and publications
Building resilience to heat in the city of Athens

This report brings together, for the first time, the diverse evidence on how Athens is managing and adapting to extreme heat.

Resilient Cities Network
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Climate change is making cities hotter. Planting trees can help

Canada’s climate is warming twice as fast as the global average, and many cities will experience at least four times as many extreme heat events (days above 30 C) per year in the coming decades.

Conversation Media Group, the
Flames of Change II: Urban action on extreme heat across Europe and Central Asia thumbnail
Documents and publications
Flames of change II: Urban action on extreme heat across Europe and Central Asia

The aim of the report is to examine how cities in Europe and Central Asia are addressing extreme urban heat. It focuses on on-the-ground, lived experiences that highlight challenges and solutions relevant to other local governments in the region.

United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction - Regional Office for Europe & Central Asia
Making Cities Resilient 2030 (MCR2030)
woman experiencing heat at night
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How to protect affordable housing residents from extreme heat

In our new Colliding Crises report, we analyzed the exposure of a subset of affordable housing units-and their residents-to extreme heat. We used the National Weather Service (NWS) county-level heat alerts between May and October 2024.

Union of Concerned Scientists
Recife - Building Urban Resilience: Latin American Cities Share DRR Strategies at High-Level Panel
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Extreme urban heat: a growing threat to Latin American cities

Average temperatures in Latin American and Caribbean cities have risen by up to 1.5°C since 1950; hot days are multiplying, and record-breaking heatwaves are far more frequent than just a few decades ago.

World Bank, the
View of Chinatown street market in Bangkok, Thailand
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Why climate-ready health systems are essential for urban resilience

2024 was the hottest year ever recorded. Temperatures in parts of South and Southeast Asia reached 53°C, and 6 of the 11 global cities that experienced prolonged extreme heat were in this region. It is a glimpse into a future that has already arrived.

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
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USA: Abandoned land drives dangerous heat in Houston, Texas

Research highlights how a lack of vegetation and shade exposes vulnerable residents to heightened health risks.

Texas A&M University System
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