Smart Heat-health Action Plans: A Programmatic, Progressive and Dynamic Framework to Address Urban Overheating
Keywords:
extreme heat, heat action plan, resilience, long-term planning, sustaisustainable urban development
Abstract
Cities stand at the focal point of vulnerability to heat waves (HWs) as they threaten urban livability and sustainability. National, regional, and local heat-health action plans (HHAPs) are vital for combating HWs and are increasingly crucial as adaptation measures to extreme heat. The present article highlights the most recent development on the working mechanism of HHAPs, its contemporary challenges, barriers to it and a range of operational heat management and planning strategies. It introduces the concept of ‘smartness’ to the existing mechanism of HHAPs which holds a significant potential to be intelligent, explicit and dynamic to address the growing and multifaceted impacts of extreme heat. It emphasizes urgent priorities including long-term heat planning, multisectoral heat-early warning systems, building urban heat resilience and recommends the application of eight core elements endorsed by the World Health Organization (WHO) for effective implementation of HHAPs. Collaboration among meteorological, epidemiological, public health, and urban planning experts is essential for addressing the multidimensional challenges of extreme heat.
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2. Dwyer, I. J., Barry, S., Megiddo, I., & White, C. J. (2022). Evaluations of heat action plans for reducing the health impacts of extreme heat: methodological developments (2012-2021) and remaining challenges. International Journal of biometeorology, 66(9), 1915–1927. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-022-02326-x
3. Ebi, K. L., Capon, A., Berry, P., Broderick, C., de Dear, R., Havenith, G., Honda, Y., Kovats, R. S., Ma, W., Malik, A., Morris, N. B., Nybo, L., Seneviratne, S. I., Vanos, J., & Jay, O. (2021). Hot weather and heat extremes: health risks. Lancet (London, England), 398(10301), 698–708. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(21)01208-3
4. IPCC (2022). Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [H.-O. Pörtner, D.C. Roberts, M. Tignor, E.S. Poloczanska, K. Mintenbeck, A. Alegría, M. Craig, S. Langsdorf, S. Löschke, V. Möller, A. Okem, B. Rama (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press. In Press.
5. Kalkstein, L. S., Jamason, P. F., Greene, J. S., Libby, J., & Robinson, L. (1996). The Philadelphia hot weather-health watch/warning system: Development and application, summer 1995. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 77(7), 1519–1528. doi:10.1175/1520-0477(1996)077<1519:tphwhw>2.0.co;2
6. Keith, L., Meerow, S., Hondula, D. M., Turner, V. K., & Arnott, J. C. (2021). Deploy heat officers, policies and metrics. Nature, 598(7879), 29–31. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-02677-2
7. Keith, L., Meerow, S., & Wagner, T. (2019). Planning for extreme heat: A review. Journal of Extreme Events, 06(03n04), 2050003. https://doi.org/10.1142/S2345737620500037
8. Keith, L., & Meerow, S. (2022). Planning for Urban Heat Resilience. PAS Report 600. American Planning Association. Retrieved from: https://www.planning.org/publications/report/9245695/
9. Keith, L., Meerow, S., Berke, P., DeAngelis, J., Jensen, L., Trego, S., Schmidt, E., Smith, S. (2022). Plan Integration for Resilience Scorecard™ (PIRS™) for Heat: Spatially evaluating networks of plans to mitigate heat (Version 1.0). Retrieved from: https://repository.arizona.edu/handle/10150/666313
10. Kotharkar, R., Aneja, S., & Ghosh, A. (2019). Heat Vulnerability Index for Urban Heat wave Risk Adaptation for Indian Cities: A Case Study of Akola. In: 5th International Conference on Countermeasures to Urban Heat Islands (IC2UHI) 02–04 December 2019. At: International Institute of Information Technology - Hyderabad, India. https://doi.org/10.37285/bsp.ic2uhi.10
11. Kotharkar, R., Dongarsane, P., & Ghosh, A. (2024). Quantification of summertime thermal stress and PET range in a tropical Indian city. Urban Climate, 53, 101758. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.uclim.2023.101758
12. Kotharkar, R., Dongarsane, P., Ghosh, A. & Kotharkar, V. (2024). Numerical analysis of extreme heat in Nagpur city using heat stress indices, all-cause mortality and local climate zone classification. Sustainable Cities and Society, 101, 105099. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2023.105099
13. Kotharkar, R., & Ghosh, A. (2021a). Progress in extreme heat management and warning systems: A systematic review of heat-health action plans (1995–2020). Sustainable Cities and Society, 76, 103487. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2021.103487
14. Kotharkar, R., & Ghosh, A. (2021b). Review of heat wave studies and related urban policies in South Asia. Urban Climate, 36, 100777. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.uclim.2021.100777
15. Kotharkar, R., Ghosh, A., & Kotharkar V. (2021). Estimating summertime heat stress in a tropical Indian city using Local Climate Zone (LCZ) framework. Urban Climate, 36, 100784. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.uclim.2021.100784
16. Kotharkar, R., Ghosh, A., Kapoor, S., & Reddy, D. G. K. (2022). Approach to local climate zone based energy consumption assessment in an Indian city. Energy and Buildings, 259, 11835. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enbuild.2022.111835
17. Martinez, G. S., Kendrovski, V., Salazar, M. A., de’Donato, F., & Boeckmann, M. (2022). Heat-health action planning in the WHO European Region: Status and policy implications. Environmental Research, 214, Article 113709. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2022.113709
18. Martinez, G. S., Linares, C., Ayuso, A., Kendrovski, V., Boeckmann, M., & Diaz, J. (2019). Heat-health action plans in Europe: Challenges ahead and how to tackle them. Environmental Research, 176, Article 108548. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2019.108548
19. Sheridan, S. C., & Kalkstein, L. S (2004). Progress in heat watch–warning system technology. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 85(12), 1931–1942. https://doi.org/10.1175/bams-85-12-1931
20. UNEP (2021). Beating the Heat: A Sustainable Cooling Handbook for Cities. United Nations Environment Programme, Nairobi.
21. VanderMolen, K., Kimutis, N., & Hatchett, B. J. (2022). Recommendations for increasing the reach and effectiveness of heat risk education and warning messaging. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 82, Article 103288. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2022.103288
22. WHO. (2004). Heat waves: Risks and responses, No. 2. health and global environmental change series. Copenhagen, Denmark: World Health Organisation. Retrieved from: http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/96965/E82629.pdf
23. WHO (2008). Europe. Heat-health action plans; Guidance. In: Mathies, F., Bickler, G., Cardẽnosa Marín, N., Hales, S. (Eds. Copenhagen, Denmark: World Health Organization Europe. Retrieved from https://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/95919/E91347.pdf
24. WHO (2021). Heat and health in the WHO European Region: updated evidence for effective prevention. Copenhagen: WHO Regional Office for Europe. Retrieved from: https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/339462/9789289055406-eng.pdf
25. Wilhelmi, O. V., & Hayden, M. H (2010). Connecting people and place: a new framework for reducing urban vulnerability to extreme heat. Environmental Research Letters, 5(1), Article 014021. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/5/1/014021
26. WMO & WHO (2015). Heatwaves and health: guidance on 1447 warning-system development. World Meteorological Organization and World Health Organization. WMO-No. 1142. Retrieved from: http://www.who.int/globalchange/publications/WMO_WHO_Heat_Health_Guidance_2015.pdf.
27. WSROC (2021). Urban Heat Planning Toolkit. Western Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils’. Retrieved from: https://wsroc.com.au/projects/project-turn-down-the-heat/turn-down-the-heat-resources-2
