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Cities and Their Extreme Weather Responses
Anyone paying attention to the news or even looking out their window knows that extreme weather events are becoming the norm. A recent article by JLL analysts quoted non-profit CDP, citing that four out of five cities worldwide face climate hazards like heat waves, floods, and droughts.
“Many cities are facing multiple threats from extreme weather,” said Jeremy Kelly, global director of Cities Research at JLL, in the article. “While they currently establish longer-term resilience plans, they also have to deal with the immediate consequences of unprecedented and costly weather events.”
The article noted specific steps that cities are taking to help meet rising temperatures while ensuring the safety of their populations. One such step is the hire of city-appointed chief heat officers. Another is to take steps to reduce the urban heat island effects.
For example, Medellin, a city in Colombia, created 30 green corridors; tree-shaded routes featuring thousands of native trees and tropical plants. This action, combined with new pedestrian paths and bike lanes, reduced the urban heat island effect by approximately 2 degrees centigrade over the past three years. Just as important is planting heat-resilient trees, which Paris is doing.
Flooding is also becoming more prominent, prompting cities to take preemptive measures. The article said that Shanghai, New York and Cardiff are developing inner-city gardens (to help retail flood waters) while improving river drainage. Copenhagen’s Enghaveparken has a floodwater basin, containing multiple chambers to hold and manage heavy rain.
Climate change hazards also disrupt power infrastructure. Columbus, OH installed the first of five planned microgrids to meet this. These microgrids offer 100 kilowatts of onsite solar generation and 440-kilowatt hours of battery energy storage. San Diego is also investing in eight microgrids. In this case, the city is doing this to ensure short-term resilience and to spur its long-term goal of 100% use of renewable energies by 2035.
“Today’s cities need to be willing to think boldly about potential resilience measures and collaborate widely to share knowledge about what is working,” Kelly said in the article. “No city can afford to be complacent about what increasingly extreme weather means for their buildings or people.”
- ◦People
- ◦Policy/Gov't
