Houston, TX: Urban Heat Island Mitigation
A Resilient Land Use Cohort (RLUC) Virtual Technical Assistance Panel
Extreme heat kills more people annually than any other climate hazard. At the request of Houston's Chief Resilience Officer, ULI Houston and the ULI Urban Resilience program hosted a virtual Technical Assistance Panel as part of the Resilient Land Use Cohort to identify heat resilience design and construction strategies.
Background and Assignment:
Extreme heat kills more people annually than any other natural disaster1, and, if left unchecked, by 2050 the City of Houston can expect: - The hottest day of summer will be 7 degrees warmer than today - There will be 22 more days that exceed 100°F - There will be 50 more nights that exceed 80°F, and - Summers overall will be 55 days longer than today.
The City of Houston (the city) has certain measures in place that can help people manage in the extreme heat on a short-term basis, but the underground tunnels connecting downtown buildings and cooling centers for residents don’t provide solutions for lowering the UHI. City leadership understands that changes need to be made across Houston and in the built environment in order to begin to reduce the UHI effect and make the city, its buildings, and Houston’s residents more resilient to heat.
The panel was tasked with answering the following questions for the City of Houston:
- What are the various building and site-scale landscape design heat resilience strategies that are commonly used in Houston today and those that, if implemented more widely, have the potential to help the city achieve its extreme heat resilience goals? (Potential strategies include but are not limited to cool and green roofs, cool pavement, tree planting, prairie restoration, green stormwater infrastructure, and shade structures.)
- What are opportunities and challenges for demonstrating short-term feasibility by referencing relevant regulations and potential financing mechanisms to help the city achieve its heat mitigation goals?
- How could possible future city policy encourage local property owners and developers to mitigate extreme heat at their projects and open spaces?
- Are there relevant examples or best practices (either regionally or nationally) that provide opportunities for guidance or lessons learned?
Key Recommendations:
- Help residents understand the actions they can individually take to mitigate heat and protect their health.
- Utilize heat map assessment and modeling through the use of GIS data sets to identify areas in need of urgent intervention.
- Create accessible economic incentive vehicles to assist in funding future work relating to heat mitigation and/or offsetting costs associated with such improvements such as tax abatement programs for green infrastructure.
This vTAP is part of an advisory services, technical assistance, and peer learning program called the Resilient Land Use Cohort (RLUC) that encourages enhanced resilience to climate change and related environmental and social vulnerabilities.
Report Summary: Extreme heat kills more people annually than any other climate hazard. At the request of Houston's Chief Resilience Officer, ULI Houston and the ULI Urban Resilience program hosted a virtual Technical Assistance Panel as part of the Resilient Land Use Cohort to identify heat resilience design and construction strategies.
Background and Assignment:
Extreme heat kills more people annually than any other natural disaster1, and, if left unchecked, by 2050 the City of Houston can expect: - The hottest day of summer will be 7 degrees warmer than today - There will be 22 more days that exceed 100°F - There will be 50 more nights that exceed 80°F, and - Summers overall will be 55 days longer than today.
The City of Houston (the city) has certain measures in place that can help people manage in the extreme heat on a short-term basis, but the underground tunnels connecting downtown buildings and cooling centers for residents don’t provide solutions for lowering the UHI. City leadership understands that changes need to be made across Houston and in the built environment in order to begin to reduce the UHI effect and make the city, its buildings, and Houston’s residents more resilient to heat.
The panel was tasked with answering the following questions for the City of Houston:
- What are the various building and site-scale landscape design heat resilience strategies that are commonly used in Houston today and those that, if implemented more widely, have the potential to help the city achieve its extreme heat resilience goals? (Potential strategies include but are not limited to cool and green roofs, cool pavement, tree planting, prairie restoration, green stormwater infrastructure, and shade structures.)
- What are opportunities and challenges for demonstrating short-term feasibility by referencing relevant regulations and potential financing mechanisms to help the city achieve its heat mitigation goals?
- How could possible future city policy encourage local property owners and developers to mitigate extreme heat at their projects and open spaces?
- Are there relevant examples or best practices (either regionally or nationally) that provide opportunities for guidance or lessons learned?
Key Recommendations:
- Help residents understand the actions they can individually take to mitigate heat and protect their health.
- Utilize heat map assessment and modeling through the use of GIS data sets to identify areas in need of urgent intervention.
- Create accessible economic incentive vehicles to assist in funding future work relating to heat mitigation and/or offsetting costs associated with such improvements such as tax abatement programs for green infrastructure.
This vTAP is part of an advisory services, technical assistance, and peer learning program called the Resilient Land Use Cohort (RLUC) that encourages enhanced resilience to climate change and related environmental and social vulnerabilities.