Towards cool cities and communities: Preparing for an increasingly hot future by the development of heat-resilient infrastructure and urban heat management plan

Abstract

Planning for extreme heat challenges is an urgent task for urban planners, designers, and managers because urban heat is a new normal climate-related challenge for many cities. However, how to integrate existing scientific outcomes and achieve the transformation from research to practice is a critical question. This study aims to frame a heat-resilient infrastructure system and an urban heat management plan (UHMP) to better promote heat solution implementation. This study analyses heat-related challenges, with China as a typical nation with highly urbanized and urbanizing cities, to demonstrate the urgency of preparing for an extreme heat era. This study then elucidates the fundamentals and methods for heat-resilient infrastructure and UHMP development, with a structure of prevention, preparation, mitigation, adaptation, and co-benefits approaches. Heat–resilient infrastructure was framed to ensure that society withstands, responds to, and recovers from heat–related impacts through actions of planning, design, construction, and operation, considering structural measures, non–structural measures, and a co-benefits approach. Furthermore, a UHMP framework was developed by determining the key mission, critical components, and associated agencies. Overall, this study provides planners, designers, and managers with theoretical and methodological frameworks to comprehensively understand heat solutions and increase their implementation capacity.