The impact that rising temperatures and excessive heat waves are having on urban development, and strategies to mitigate urban heat island effects are explored in a new report, Scorched: Extreme Heat and Real Estate, published by the Urban Land Institute (ULI).
Scorched, published with support from The JPB Foundation, explores how extreme heat is emerging as a growing risk factor and planning consideration across the United States, and how the real estate industry is responding with design approaches, technologies and new policies to mitigate the impacts and help protect human health. The real estate sector can improve resilience to extreme heat through mitigation strategies that reduce temperatures, as well as adaptation tactics to help people and businesses cope with extreme heat, it says.
Findings in the report include:
- More cities in the United States are or will be at risk of extreme heat because of climate change and increased urban development.
- Extreme heat is a pressing public health risk, particularly for low-income and elderly communities. Cool design strategies, combined with public health and emergency responses, can help offset heat-related mortalities.
- Without intervention, the current and potential future impacts of extremely high temperatures — on real estate developments, infrastructure, and the economy — could be substantial.
- Widespread adoption of mitigation strategies could help reduce the urban warming trends currently occurring in cities, leaving them to contend with a more manageable 1-degree to 2- degree Fahrenheit increase, rather than the 5-degree to 10-degree increase currently projected for some cities due to the urban heat island effect. (The urban heat island effect is the difference in temperature between urban and rural areas.)
It points to a broad range of options, many of which also add value as an amenity, including the use of light colored surfaces and materials, providing increased shade from built and natural canopies, and the use of “heat aware” building envelopes and heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) choices that stabilize indoor temperatures even during power outages.
“Real estate developers, designers and public policymakers are increasingly acknowledging the detrimental consequences of extreme heat and are seeking solutions to make buildings, neighborhoods, parks, and other outdoor spaces more adaptable to environmental conditions and comfortable for occupants,” said W. Edward Walter, ULI Global CEO. “This presents an opportunity to reduce climate risk and create better communities in the process.”
