Abstract:  The burden of heat in urban areas is not shared equally among all residents, often with the most disadvantaged bearing the highest risk and suffering the greatest impacts. The drivers of these inequities are many, including social factors, historical housing policies, urban planning and design choices, and urban-scale climate dynamics effected by urban form. This webinar will focus on 4 projects taking place across the country aiming to work with communities to understand the impacts of extreme heat, to observe and model the drivers of those impacts, and to ultimately help local decision makers make informed decisions about how to mitigate heat risk now and for the future. These projects were funded by the National Integrated Heat Health Information System (NIHHIS) Extreme Heat Risk Initiative in FY21 and will continue through FY22. A fifth project funded in this competition, focused on urban planning for extreme heat, has been completed and will be the subject of a future webinar session.

• Baltimore, MD: Seeing Heat Risk Through an Equity Lens: Putting High Resolution Temperature Data to Work for Urban Environmental Justice

• Vermont: Exposure-based Extreme Heat Vulnerability Mapping to Inform Adaptation and Mitigation of Extreme Heat Exposure Risk in Small Cities and Rural Settlements

• Houston, TX: Improved Simulations of Surface Temperature in Cities Near Large Water Bodies with Implications for Heat Indices and Urban Heat Mitigation Scenarios

• Austin, TX: Urban Climate Science for Decision-Making & Evaluation of Heat-Health Interventions for Austin, Texas

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