The Current State of Urban Heat Island Mitigation Policy

Kurt Shickman, Global Cool Cities Alliance

Snigdha Garg, C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group

ABSTRACT

Addressing rising temperatures resulting from heat islands and global climate change is
one of the biggest urban sustainability challenges of this century. Reducing the threat of excess
heat requires a broad multi-disciplinary effort from city leadership. Understanding how officials
view, prioritize, and address the challenges of urban heat will help focus research and policy
implementation efforts that lead to practical improvements in urban heat responses and foster
greater communication between the researchers and policy implementers.
This paper reviews the experiences of select member cities of the Cool Cities Network
(CCN) that are working to mitigate excess and extreme urban heat. We identify common themes
in urban heat mitigation through three short case studies. The CCN is a unique partnership
among more than fifteen large cities around the world that develops, shares, and replicates
successful policies and programs to reduce excess urban heat. Network members include cities
that are global leaders in reducing climate change as well as cities that are just beginning to
understand and address their heat challenges. The case studies presented in this paper are
intended to appeal to cities in the early to middle range of experience.

Introduction
Urban temperatures are increasing at twice the global average. This rapid warming trend
poses a broad-spectrum public health and environmental threat both to the 3.5 billion people that
live in cities worldwide and to adjacent ecosystems. Cities are hotter than non-urbanized areas
and warming at an accelerated rate due to the urban heat island effect. Heat islands form because
our urban surfaces, which tend to be dark and impermeable, absorb solar energy and radiate it
has heat. Heat islands are also a result of waste heat from human activities like space cooling and
driving. Cities tend to have fewer vegetated and shaded areas than non-urban spaces and
buildings can impede natural wind patterns that would otherwise remove heat. The negative
effect of heat on cities appears to be worsening. Cities are rapidly heating just as the world
experiences a mass urban migration that will create larger and denser urban areas. The United
Nations reports that the percentage of the population living in urban areas will grow from 54%
today to 66% by 2050 (United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population
Division 2014).
Excess heat impacts nearly every facet of urban life. Heat increases electricity demand
for cooling, often at times when the electric grid is experiencing peak demand periods. Up to 10
percent of peak power demands are a direct result of persistently higher temperatures in urban
heat islands. Urban heat islands are responsible for up to 20 percent of urban smog formation
(Akbari 2005). Poor air quality, combined with extreme heat events, significantly impacts the
health and safety of urban residents.
Heat disproportionately impacts vulnerable and minority populations that are the least
capable of withstanding its effects. At its extreme, urban heat causes more deaths than any other

©2016 ACEEE Summer Study on Energy Efficiency in Buildings 11-1

 natural disaster combined. The 1995 Chicago heat wave claimed the lives of 739 people, many
of whom lived on the top floor of buildings with a dark roof. The 2003 European heat wave is
estimated to have killed more than 70,000 people (Robine, Cheung, and Seu Lan). A new report
for the Department of Energy by the National Center for Atmospheric Research and Lawrence
Berkeley National Lab likens our future urban heat scenario to “some sort of deadly disease” in
our cities (Tebaldi and Wehner 2016).
As a result of these dire trends, rising urban heat is receiving increasing attention from
city policymakers from around the world. Many cities are using simple, cost-effective methods
to reduce excess urban heat including shifting to roofs with white and/or reflective surfaces,
reducing the amount of pavement, making pavements more reflective or permeable, and
increasing vegetative cover.
A number of the world’s largest cities formed the Cool Cities Network (CCN) to share
their experiences addressing excess heat challenges, to support joint strategies to reduce heat,
and to collaborate with researchers and other stakeholders to improve monitoring and
measurement of progress towards cooler, more live-able cities. The CCN is a partnership of The
Global Cool Cities Alliance and C40: Cities and is led by the Washington, DC District
government. Active city members include Athens, Barcelona, Dhaka South, Dubai, Durban, Los
Angeles, Melbourne, Mexico City, New York, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Tokyo and Toronto. This
paper provides three short case studies that highlight broader themes of what cities are doing to
mitigate their urban heat islands.
Theme 1: Cities are leading by example on heat response. Washington DC’s Smart Roof
program systematically evaluated its 11 million square feet of municipal roof space for
reflective, vegetative, or solar installations and is now replacing their existing roofs with
sustainable, heat-mitigating options.
Theme 2: Cities are incorporating heat into long-term planning. Tokyo included urban
heat islands in its Conservation Ordinance, which helped establish a multi-year approach to
mitigation as part of a broader buildings initiative.
Theme 3: Cities are mapping data to better target heat program activities. Barcelona
undertook a comprehensive GIS-based process to identify where the city is hottest and where its
residents are most vulnerable to heat.

Theme 1 – Leading by Example: Washington, DC

Washington DC has a long history of policy leadership on sustainability, captured under
an umbrella initiative called Sustainable DC. A key component of that strategy is maximizing the
potential for District rooftops to mitigate urban heat islands, manage stormwater, and generate
renewable energy. In support of this goal, the District adopted an amended version of the
International Energy Conservation Code that included cool roof requirements for some
commercial buildings. It has been at or near the top of cities for vegetated roof coverage in Green
Roofs for Healthy Cities’ Annual Green Roof Industry Survey for many years (Green Roofs for
Healthy Cities 2015). In December 2015, the District announced one of the largest municipal
onsite solar projects in the United States that will grow solar photovoltaic (PV) generation
capacity to 11.4 megawatts on District-owned buildings and parking lots – a 70 percent increase
over today.
The roof space on buildings controlled by the District is a substantial potential platform
for meeting these goals. The District Department of General Services (DGS) owns or controls

11-2 ©2016 ACEEE Summer Study on Energy Efficiency in Buildings

 400 buildings with approximately 11 million square feet of roof space. Approximately 9 million
square feet of the portfolio is made up of low-sloped roofs.
In 2014, the DGS launched the Smart Roof program to assess the potential of each roof in
the DGS portfolio to meet its goals for reduced heat islands, improved stormwater retention, and
increased solar energy production. Roof consultants Bluefin LLC and Lightbox Energy assessed
the physical condition of each roof, and evaluated the economics of each sustainable technology
options, the structural load capacity of the roof (necessary for vegetated roofs), the viability for
high efficiency solar energy installations, watershed impacts, and existing roof insulation levels.
Economic evaluations factored in any available credits for solar energy and stormwater
mitigation, as well as the effect of power purchase agreements.
High-end, silicone-base, reflective coatings were typically considered for functioning
roofs as a way to considerably extend the life of the roof. Existing roofs with the new silicone
coatings received a 20-year warranty. The city installed single-ply white membranes on new and
replaced roofs that could not support a vegetated roof. In many cases, DGS installed both a cool
roof and solar PV together. The evaluation included a schedule for roof interventions based on
estimated remaining roof life and upgrade costs to allow DGS to better plan capital expenditures.
Bluefin LLC and Lightbox Energy specify individual projects as needed and manage the bidding
process for DGS.
Lightbox Energy reports that, as of February 2015, the program has upgraded 2.2 million
square feet of roofs as follows:

• 1.8 million square feet of reflective roofing (275 thousand square feet of silicone coating,
1.6 million square feet of white single-ply membrane)
• 372 thousand square feet of vegetated roofing
• 12 megawatts of solar PV on 2 million square feet

In parallel, DGS undertook a comprehensive cost benefit analysis of the Smart Roof program
that quantified the net economic impacts of transitioning to sustainable roofing across its
portfolio. The analysis was unprecedented in scope, incorporating energy, health, air quality, and
carbon considerations for the entire city. It provides the first rigorous and comprehensive
methodology to estimate the costs and benefits of cool roofs, green roofs, and rooftop PV. It has
involved a range of leading health and policy advisors and the development of a multilevel
health and benefits valuation model to quantify the full set of costs and benefits of these
technologies. The establishment of this model provides a powerful new platform to address and
understand larger city design opportunities.
Per Figure 1, this report’s findings strongly indicate that a city-wide strategy of adoption of
these technologies would have private and public benefits on the order of billions of dollars,
including providing energy savings for building owners, reducing city peak summer
temperatures, improving livability, and providing a large public health benefit. Table 1 shows
that, over a 40-year period, transitioning DGS buildings to reflective, vegetated, and/or solar
roofs would generate up to $335 million in net benefits for District, with paybacks of
approximately 2 years on reflective roofs and 11 years on green roofs (Kats and Glassbrook
2015).

©2016 ACEEE Summer Study on Energy Efficiency in Buildings 11-3

 Figure 1: Economic impact of switching from a dark (reflectance of 0.15) to a light roof (reflectance of 0.65).
Source Capital-E

Table 1: Cost/benefit comparison of sustainable roofing options to standard dark roofs over 40
years.
Comparison to Standard Standard Roof with
Dark Roofs Reflective Roof Vegetated Roof Solar PV (PPA)
Costs $5,580,000 $203,000,000 $0
Benefits $52,100,000 $528,000,000 $294,000,000
Net Total $46,500,000 $335,000,000 $294,000,000
Internal Rate of Return 58% 11%` N/A
Simple Payback 2 years 11 years N/A
Benefit to Cost Ratio 6.62 2.65 N/A
2
Net Present Value per ft $4.28 $37.26 $46.72
Source: Capital-E

Theme 2 – Considering Heat in Long-Term Planning: Tokyo

Over the last century, average temperatures in Tokyo have risen by 3 degrees Celsius, or
nearly 5 times the increase in global average temperatures and about 2.5 times faster than in the
rural areas surrounding Tokyo. Officials identified a number of negative impacts that they
attributed to Tokyo’s heat, including an increase in the number of heat stroke incidences
requiring a hospital visit. The Tokyo Municipal Government (TMG) has taken measures to
mitigate the impacts of the excess urban heat, including covering roofs and walls with greenery
and passing the Nature Conservation Ordinance in 2001 (C40 Cities 2015). The Ordinance

11-4 ©2016 ACEEE Summer Study on Energy Efficiency in Buildings

 requires the greening of building roofs and walls for all new construction and existing buildings
undergoing renovations, as well as increased vegetated cover on building sites.
The Tokyo Metropolitan Government undertook an advertising campaign for the
Conservation Ordinance and its compliance requirements and followed it up with strong
enforcement practices. Since 2001, more than 5,700 new or existing buildings have added about
19,000,000 square feet of green roofs in Tokyo.
Promoting the greening of existing buildings has not only helped in beatification of the
urban landscape, but has also proven to be an effective measure to counter the heat island effect.
Research done in 2004 showed that new light-weight green roofs applied to existing buildings
could lower the roof surface temperature by 25 degrees Celsius and the temperature on the
ceiling of rooms below the roof by 1 to 3 degrees Celsius even under thermal insulation.
TMG is also promoting cool pavements by including cool coating and permeable/porous
pavement installation as a part of road maintenance and construction within identified priority
areas in central Tokyo. Figure 2 shows that pavement with a cool, reflective coating reduces
pavement surface temperatures by approximately 10 degrees Celsius compared to regular asphalt
pavement. Data collected by the TMG has found that permeable/porous pavements suppress the
temperature rise of road surfaces by a similar amount through water evaporation. The TMG
deploys both technologies, typically using permeable/porous pavements in areas where
stormwater management is also a priority. TMG has linked the cool pavement programs with the
upcoming summer Olympics by installing cool pavements along the marathon routes and on
roads around the venues. The city approved cool pavement specifications so that they may be
used as a part of road maintenance and repair, if applicable and cost effective. TMG provides
subsidy for cool coatings on pavements to encourage their installation. As a result, Tokyo now
has development of 52 miles of cool pavements including 40 miles of cool coated pavements and
12 miles of permeable/porous pavements. TMG plans to expand these by 6 miles every year until
2020 with a target of 85 miles of cool pavements by 2020.

Figure 2: Cool pavement test in Tokyo that demonstrated a 10 degree Celsius reduction in
surface temperatures between the standard asphalt pavement (left) and a cool pavement
application (right). Source: Japan Paint Manufacturers Association.
TMG attributes the success of these cooling projects to its ability to link them to larger
infrastructure projects. These projects tended to be well-funded, high-profile undertakings that
would help raise the profile of the environmental benefits of the technologies while providing a

©2016 ACEEE Summer Study on Energy Efficiency in Buildings 11-5

 pilot for how the technologies could be implemented on a city-scale. The linkage significantly
reduced the burden of making a business case for cool infrastructure and helped securing funding
that otherwise might not have been available for a cooling project.

Theme 3 – Mapping data to better understand the impact of heat: Barcelona

Nearly 70% of the expected global impacts of climate change are already being
experienced in Barcelona, and they are expected to increase in intensity and frequency.
Mortality rates on heat waves have increased drastically, which has triggered city’s work on heat
island effect.
Barcelona is following a holistic approach to manage their excess heat. The city started with
a mapping initiative to pinpoint where heat impacts are most intense. City officials collected its
urban heat island data based on land use, weather, physics, thermodynamics, anthropogenic heat,
and urban morphology factors such as sky view factor, albedo and Normalized Difference
Vegetation Index (NDVI). Figure 3 shows how the city has identified and mapped the vulnerable
hot spots and categorizes them based on their extreme heat risk.

Figure 3: The data components used by Barcelona to better characterize and locate its hot
spots and areas of heat vulnerability. Source: Irma Ventayol, City of Barcelona

Alongside the climatic conditions, the city is also looking to incorporate social characteristics
of residents that increase vulnerability to negative heat health outcomes. These include
individual characteristics such as age, poverty, physical impairments and community
characteristics such as poor housing constructions, and access to air conditioning.

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 Barcelona spelled out a three-pronged approach in its emergency response plan called
“Action Plan to Prevent the Effects of Heat Waves on Health1” that includes:

• Prioritize heat vulnerable populations;

• Increase environmental services from green infrastructure; and,
• Incorporate environmental criteria in urban planning.

Barcelona has scaled their emergency response to a heat wave into four phases: preventive
phase I, preventive phase II, alert and emergency phase. Each successive phase is launched when
conditions reach certain intensity (such as maximum daily or overnight temperatures) or duration
(multiple days with high minimum and maximum temperatures).
The city has also prepared a Green Infrastructure and Biodiversity Plan that defines the
challenges, goals and commitments of the city to preserve and improve the conservation of green
spaces and ecological diversity2. The plan defines long-term actions to achieve ecological
infrastructure producing environmental and social benefits to the citizens. It aims to have more
green surfaces, more biomass, and more quality of life in the city.
Barcelona is developing the Ciutadella-Collserola green corridor in Passeig de Sant Joan
neighborhood. This corridor, shown in Figure 4, is one of the first green corridors to be
implemented that connects several isolated natural areas in Barcelona. It aims to benefit the
wildlife of the area while facilitating easy mobility and providing spaces for recreation. The
proposed project includes sidewalks, a boulevard, incorporates new alignments to existing trees
providing shade for recreation areas, public LED lighting and fiber optics, sensors and wireless
as well as other smart elements. The reduced sidewalk also becomes a pacified traffic zone
including a bus lane and a bike lane. 3 The city encourages development of green roofs, decks
and courtyard in existing as well as new buildings. The city has also developed an interactive
map with geo-location of existing green cover. It has also gathered data on how many buildings
(private and public) are fit for green roofs (existing and potential).4

1
Generalitat de Catalunya. 2012. Action Plan to Prevent the Effects of Heat Waves on Health.
[Link]
s_de_lonada_de_calor_sobre_la_salut/
2
Generalitat de Catalunya. Green Infrastructure and Biodiversity Plan.
[Link]
biodiversity-plan
3
Generalitat de Catalunya. Green Corridors: Passeig de Sant Joan.
[Link]
corridors-passeig-de-sant-joan
4
Generalitat de Catalunya. Living Roofs and Green Covers. [Link]
we-do-and-why/green-city-and-biodiversity/living-roofs-and-green-covers

©2016 ACEEE Summer Study on Energy Efficiency in Buildings 11-7

 Figure 4: Ciutadella-Collserola green corridor, before and after. Photo: Irma Ventayol

Barcelona is committed to its sustainability goals and has planned its next steps to improve
the UHI mitigation. The city council is looking into assessing the environmental and social
benefits of the existing and planned measures. As mentioned earlier, they are also looking at the
potential green roofs that can be installed in the city in the coming years. The city further plans
to run models based on different cooling techniques with and without climate change. Examples
of these scenarios are: ‘green roofs’ vs. ‘cool roofs’ vs. ‘climate change + cool roofs’ vs. ‘climate
change + green roofs’.

Conclusion
Excess heat is a challenging problem for many cities. Global trends indicate that heat will
be a significant urban challenge for the rest of this century and beyond. While its characteristics
and impacts differ by city, there are some common approaches that cities take to respond to this
challenge. This paper highlights those approaches with examples from cities participating in the
Cool Cities Network.
Cities are leading by example by incorporating heat mitigation technologies on their
buildings and public spaces. Washington DC’s Smart Roof program is a data-driven approach to
using municipally controlled roofs to meet its goals to improve efficiency, increase renewable
energy, and mitigate excess urban heat. The program will result in millions of dollars of
economic benefits in the form of energy savings, improved air quality, and fewer negative health
incidences and it is gathering performance data that will help make the case for sustainable
roofing to the private sector.
Cities are considering heat in their long-term planning. Tokyo recognized that excess heat
was resulting in negative health impacts and increased energy use and sought strategies to cool
off. The city embedded heat measurement and mitigation into its long-term planning, which
allowed them to tap funding streams and implement a coherent multi-year strategy. As a result,
the city has led the way on cooler pavement technologies.
Cities are using GIS mapping to visualize the problem of excess heat and to inform
specific program and policy priority areas. Barcelona sought to better understand where its most
heat vulnerable residents were by mapping the components of heat and vulnerability. The
resulting map of the city allows officials to target heat interventions and plan heat emergency
responses.

11-8 ©2016 ACEEE Summer Study on Energy Efficiency in Buildings

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Green Roofs for Healthy Cities. 2015. 2014 Annual Green Roof Industry Study. Accessed on
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