The SW-IFL research and engagement activities will be focused on Arizona’s growing urban corridor.
🎉 Some incredible news to announce! 🎉 We have been awarded a $25 million grant by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for the Southwest Urban Corridor Integrated Field Laboratory (SW-IFL), a partnership led by Arizona State University with the University of Arizona, Northern Arizona University, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and IBM for climate change modeling, observations, and resilient solutions. The research and engagement will focus on the urban corridor in Arizona stretching from the Navajo Nation on the north; through the Flagstaff, Phoenix, and Tucson metropolitan areas; to Nogales and the U.S.-Mexico border on the south.
The SW-IFL will study the rapidly urbanizing Arizona urban corridor to provide scientists and decision-makers with high-quality, relevant knowledge to inform and develop equitable solutions to improve resiliency. I am a Co-I of the overall SW-IFL and lead of the University of Arizona team, which will receive $3.5 million and includes colleagues from across campus. The SW-IFL is one of four new Urban Integrated Field Laboratories funded by DOE.
Excited to share our new Plan Integration for Resilience Scorecard™ for Heat guidebook, by myself, Sara Meerow, Phil Berke, and Joseph DeAngelis, AICP and our students including Lauren Jensen, Shaylynn Trego, Erika Schmidt, and Stephanie Smith. PIRS™ for Heat provides an integrated planning approach that coordinates strategies across community plans and uses the best available heat risk information to prioritize heat mitigation strategies for the most vulnerable communities.
Our guidebook provides a step-by-step walkthrough of how to conduct the PIRS™ for Heat approach, as well as case studies with results from our partner communities of Baltimore, Boston, Fort Lauderdale, Houston, and Seattle. For instance, our PIRS™ for Heat results indicate that Boston’s heat mitigation policies are targeting hotter areas and more socially vulnerable communities for heat mitigation. Interestingly though, these two areas are not necessarily co-located.
PIRS™ for Heat results for Boston, MA, including the net score (left), urban heat (middle), and social vulnerability (right).
Our approach was developed as an extension of the Plan Integration for Resilience Scorecard™ developed first by Phil Berke and colleagues and originally applied to flooding hazards. The PIRS™ for Heat guidebook was funded by and is freely available thanks to the U.S. National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration Extreme Heat Initiative and a partnership with American Planning Association.
Sara Meerow and I after being presented with the award.
Excited to share that Sara Meerow and I won the American Planning Association, Arizona Chapter’s Open Category (Applied Research) award for Planning for Urban Heat Resilience (APA PAS Report #600). Our report draws from our collaborative research on heat including literature reviews, a national survey, interviews, and planning case studies, and provides an overview of climate change and the urban heat island effect, the inequitable impacts of heat, and heat information sources. We provide an urban heat resilience planning framework for communities and outline numerous heat mitigation and management strategies.
The report is available as a free download thanks to a grant from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Excited to share a new paper published on the potential for green stormwater infrastructure as a climate maladaptation in the Journal of American Mosquito Control Association (AMCA) with Heidi Brown, Valerie Madera-Garcia, Anissa Taylor, Nicholas Ramirez, and Irene Ogata!
Schematic of green stormwater infrastructure with generic mosquito life cycle embedded. Green stormwater infrastructures (GSIs) where stormwater pools for longer periods may become a source for mosquito emergence. (Brown et al., 2022)
We engaged a group of interdisciplinary undergraduate and graduate students across the University of Arizona through this project to help assess the potential for green stormwater infrastructure as a climate maladaptation that could potentially encourage the breeding of mosquitos. The good news is that the curb cuts we sampled did not retain water long enough for mosquito breeding. The bad news is that one of the larger basins consistently held water longer than designed and had the Culex quinquefasciatus mosquito larvae, a West Nile virus vector.
We highly recommend that any future green stormwater infrastructure design, construction, and maintenance include vector control experts and considerations to ensure it does not unintentionally become a climate maladaptation.
Green stormwater infrastructure provides environmental, economic, and health benefits as a strategy for building resilience against climate change impacts. However, it may inadvertently increase vulnerability due to improper design and construction or lack of maintenance. We engaged city stakeholders and a diverse student group to investigate possible maladaptation. After rain events, student interns collected data at green stormwater infrastructure, identified in partnership with city stakeholders, for both water retention and mosquito larvae, if present. During the sampling period in 2018, 24 rain events occurred, with 28 sites visited 212 times including visits to basins (63%), curb cuts (34%), and a bioswale (2%). The largest basin consistently retained water (mean: 3.3 days, SD: 2.3 days) and was a positive site for Culex quinquefasciatus, a West Nile virus vector. We found that while basins can become mosquito breeding habitat, there was no evidence that curb cuts were collecting and retaining water long enough. As cities turn to green stormwater infrastructure to address climate change impacts of increasing drought, flooding, and extreme heat, these findings can help in the selection of appropriate infrastructure design typologies.
I am thrilled to share that Planning Advisory Service (PAS) Report 600: Planning for Urban Heat Resilience has been published by the American Planning Association! My co-author, Sara Meerow, and I argue that the planning profession has a critical role to play in equitably addressing increasing heat risk and lay out the steps communities can take to either start heat planning or improve their current efforts.
An excerpt from our Executive Summary:
Heat poses a growing and inequitable threat. Cities around the world must plan now to increase urban heat resilience in the face of climate change and the UHI effect. Planners are well positioned to use existing regulatory tools and plans to mitigate the inequitably distributed risk associated with the UHI effect, reduce greenhouse gas emissions contributing to climate change, and help prepare for extreme heat events. This PAS Report equips planners with the background knowledge, planning framework, and catalog of comprehensive approaches to heat mitigation and management they need to work effectively with colleagues across agencies and sectors and advance urban heat resilience in their communities.
(Keith and Meerow, 2022 page 8)
Our guidebook draws from the latest research on extreme heat and heat planning and includes practical examples and case studies that show how communities across the United States are planning for heat. It is an honor to have written APA’s first-ever comprehensive guidance on heat planning with Sara and we hope that planners, allied professionals, and community members find it a helpful resource.
Planning for Urban Heat Resilience is available as a free download thanks to a grant from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
