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This case study by the Stockholm Environment Institute uses Pärnu City and County in Estonia to illustrate the development and impact of urban heat islands (UHI). It employs satellite-derived land surface temperature data and social vulnerability mapping to demonstrate how heat risk is an interaction between physical hazards, population exposure, and social sensitivity.

The Caferağa neighborhood in Istanbul is implementing a comprehensive urban redesign to combat overcrowding from 2.3 million daily district visitors and mitigate climate risks. Through a partnership with WRI Türkiye, the area is piloting Low Emission Zones and proposing five key interventions: expanding pedestrian and bike infrastructure (targeting 58 km of lanes by 2050), launching the ModaBüs shuttle in 2025, managing parking sustainably, and transitioning 30% of deliveries to electric or active transport to save 425 kg of CO2 weekly.

This briefingS briefing from the World Resources Institute explains five different heat metrics—land surface temperature, air temperature, heat index, wet bulb globe temperature, and thermal comfort indices—and how they serve different purposes for urban planning and public health. It argues that while traditional metrics provide regional or surface-level data, thermal comfort indices are necessary forSSS to understand the local, human-scale experience of heat and to design effective interventions like shade and green space.

A case study by the World Resources Institute (WRI) detailing how WRI India and the Kochi Municipal Corporation (KMC) implemented the Kawaki initiative to build climate resilience through urban forests in Kochi, India.

This briefing by RMI argues for a strategic, science-based approach to urban forestry in Delhi to mitigate extreme heat and the urban heat island effect, emphasizing the use of native species and site-specific planning over emergency responses.

This briefing discusses how hybrid clean energy systems—combining local renewable resources like solar with baseload resources like geothermal—can address energy and climate injustices in marginalized communities. It highlights the disproportionate impact of extreme heat and aging gas infrastructure on low-income communities of color and evaluates policy interventions and technical models, such as a geothermal pilot in Massachusetts, to improve energy security and resilience.

This briefing transcript features a panel of experts discussing coastal resilience in the Great Lakes region, focusing on climate impacts, nature-based solutions, tribal adaptation strategies, and climate-smart agriculture. The discussion emphasizes the economic and environmental importance of the Great Lakes, the role of coastal wetlands in mitigating flooding and improving water quality, and the necessity of integrating traditional ecological knowledge and local leadership into federal and state policy.

The Cooling for All Policy Review, published by Sustainable Energy for All in March 2018, examines the global landscape of cooling policies, focusing on Minimum Energy Performance Standards (MEPS) for air conditioners and refrigerators, building efficiency codes, urban heat island mitigation, and cold chain infrastructure.

This policy brief outlines strategies for enhancing resilience in the built environment to combat climate change, focusing on robust design, the mitigation of urban heat island effects, and the adoption of sustainable architectural and planning protocols.

This briefing by the International Institute for Sustainable Development examines strategies for increasing the climate resilience of the urban built environment, with a specific focus on the Canadian Prairies. It discusses the risks posed by climate variability, the impact of the urban heat island effect, and the application of design protocols and urban planning paradigms to mitigate these risks.

This report examines the integration of urban and peri-urban agriculture and forestry (UPAF) into climate change action plans, focusing on case studies from the Western Province of Sri Lanka and Rosario, Argentina. It argues that UPAF can address the 'triple challenge' of climate change mitigation, adaptation, and the provision of basic services like food security for vulnerable urban populations.

This fact sheet from the Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) describes various cool roof technologies—including naturally cool, coated, insulated, and green roofs—and their benefits for energy efficiency, climate mitigation, and urban environment management.

This policy brief describes a transdisciplinary project in Chile that examines the intersection of urban heat, building energy efficiency, and public health. Using a case study from the municipality of Quilpué, the project identifies correlations between high temperatures and hospital visits, highlighting the need to integrate health criteria into building codes and housing policies to mitigate climate vulnerability and energy poverty.

This policy brief describes a project focused on integrating health criteria into the energy-environmental assessment of buildings to reduce urban heat exposure in Chile, specifically examining the commune of Quilpué.

This technical report analyzes the vulnerability, threats, and risks associated with hydroclimatic events, specifically flooding, in the city of Durán, Ecuador. Using a methodology based on IPCC definitions and the StormWater Management Model (SWMM), the study evaluates exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity across 268 urban sectors to identify areas of high risk and propose integrated resilience strategies.

The 'Kliimamuutustega kohanemise arengukava aastani 2030' is a national strategic framework designed to reduce Estonia's vulnerability to climate change. It identifies key risks—including rising temperatures, increased winter precipitation, and sea-level rise—and establishes eight priority areas for adaptation: health and rescue capacity, land use and planning, the natural environment, bioeconomy, economy, society/awareness, infrastructure, and energy security. The plan outlines specific goals, metrics, and a budget of 43.745 million euros for the period 2017–2030 to increase the resilience of the state, regional, and local levels.

This research paper introduces a globally scalable, open-source framework designed to help cities map and quantify the potential for heat-resilient infrastructure. The framework utilizes a new high-resolution urban land-cover dataset called OpenUrban to generate implementation scenarios for passive cooling interventions such as trees, cool roofs, reflective pavements, and shade structures.

This technical note describes a fully open-source modeling framework developed by the World Resources Institute's Cool Cities Lab to assess hyperlocal heat exposure in cities at a 1-meter resolution using the Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI).