2020 ESA Annual Meeting (August 3 - 6)

COS 91 Abstract - City-university partnerships to generate and apply thermal data for supporting thermally-resilient communities for the pre-organized session, data across disciplines: The journey from generating to applying data to create resilient cities

Paul Coseo, The Design School, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, Braden Kay, Office of Sustainablity, City of Tempe, Tempe, AZ, Ariane Middel, School of Arts, Media, and Engineering, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, Jennifer Vanos, School of Sustainability, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, David M. Hondula, School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, Katja Brundiers, School of Sustainablity, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, Zoe Hamstead, Department of Urban and Regional Planning, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, Emmanuel Frimpong Boamah, Urban & Regional Planning, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, Nicholas Rajkovich, Architecture, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY and Saud AlKhaled, Architecture, Kuwait University, Kuwait City, Kuwait
Background/Question/Methods:

Extreme thermal events are a growing urban ecological challenge, which researchers and practitioners must navigate. City officials have responded with a variety of policies to reduce extreme heat (Larsen, 2015; Stone, 2012). While at the other thermal extreme, cold is an existing challenge with research showing that cold-related mortality is greater to or equal that of extreme heat (Berko, Ingram, Saha, & Park, 2014). Yet, few cities have collaboratively addressed the problem of thermal vulnerability in a systematic way. Managing thermal extremes may likely require collaboration between residents, public officials, designers, and researchers. In 2017 and 2018, researchers from two universities partnered with local governments in Tempe, AZ and Buffalo, NY. This city-university and city-city partnership resulted in a codesigned city-university action-research agenda. Work from this initial project then led to a pilot of four living lab activities in a subsequent summer in Tempe, AZ. The Tempe research-practitioner team codeveloped research questions. What types of microclimate data can City staff use to improve policy and decision-making for extreme heat? How can this data and the application of that data be improved through coproduction workshops to make it more actionable for the City to improve resilience to extreme heat?

Results/Conclusions:

During summer 2019, the Tempe team codeveloped and piloted a citywide heat and health survey to serve as a baseline for broad city policies around extreme heat for vulnerable individuals and communities. Complementing the survey, we deployed a neighborhood microclimate assessment for a select number of parks, playspaces, multiuse paths, and sidewalks in one Tempe neighborhood. This was followed with one participatory heat assessment event that had residents and public officials walk through that same infrastructure to document their thermal experiences. All the data from the summer activities were then synthesized for a series of workshops to discuss the findings and seek application pathways. One key finding was that we found a 40°C difference in mean radiant temperature between shaded and unshaded paths. The workshops resulted in three Climate Action items: 1) Additional workshops to translate existing heat data into “desktop ready”, use-informed tools; 2) Creation of educational training on heat for staff and residents including video modules; and 3) Continuing community heat walks to build neighborhood resilience. We will discuss this approach and the implication for urban ecological research, planning, and design including how designed experiments (Felson & Pickett, 2005) can contribute to building capacity for thermal resilience.