HEAT GOVERNANCE & POLICY

We conduct research to inform evidence-based heat governance, including policy, planning, and regulation, to protect vulnerable populations and communities. The work focuses on providing solutions to proactively address heat exposure where people live, work, and go to school — before it becomes an acute health emergency. Our research includes assessing how to make cities more heat resilient through physical interventions and adaptations to protect public health.

After identifying gaps in California’s programs and funds, we created policy briefs to guide an equitable and comprehensive approach to heat. Now we are analyzing funding and policy best practices from across the nation, the federal government, and beyond.

California State Capitol Building; credit: Wikimedia Commons

CURRENT PROJECT(S)

The increasing impacts of extreme heat on health are intensified for children. However, schools lack effective solutions. Designed in collaboration with schools, the HeatReady Schools Southwest Regional Resilience Innovation Incubator will create school-level solutions for heat-prone regions, expand heat illness prevention and response training, promote greater awareness and action to reduce heat illness, promote safe activity, improve learning, and align with school heat resilience programs and policies.

Researcher(s): V. Kelly Turner and Lana Zimmerman
Funder: National Science Foundation

As evaluators of the California Governor’s Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation’s Extreme Heat and Community Resilience, our experts are assessing project successes and barriers as well as examining cooling strategies implemented in California and internationally.

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Researcher(s): V. Kelly Turner, C.J. Gabbe, Lana Zimmerman, Camille Burrus, Zachary Wampler
Funder: California Governor’s Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation

We are providing a menu of feasible strategies to support the California State Legislature’s ability to facilitate the adoption of mechanical cooling, such as air conditioning, in homes and schools. We are focusing on home and schools because these are two settings where populations most sensitive to heat—infants, youth, seniors, and those with medical issues—spend the most time. This project is informed by engagement with California legislators, agency staff, nonprofit leaders, and heat legislation research across the country.

Researcher(s): V. Kelly Turner and Lana Zimmerman
Funder: Resources Legacy Fund

This project examines the experience of communities currently engaging in heat planning and infrastructure investments through California’s new Extreme Heat and Community Resilience program to understand if and how supportive policies can reduce disconnects between local capacity and federal expectations.

Researcher(s): CJ Gabbe and Lana Zimmerman
Funder: National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration

Our researchers, in partnership with Arizona State University and the University of Arizona, established the nation’s first Center of Excellence for Heat Resilient Communities. The Center engaged and supported communities in determining the best strategies for local heat mitigation and management while developing public and private investment recommendations. Despite a loss of federal funding, our researchers will serve as senior advisors to the Atlantic Council’s Climate Resilience Center’s continued work with the 15 previously recruited communities.

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Researcher(s): PI V. Kelly Turner (Luskin Center for Innovation), CoPI Sara Meerow (Arizona State University); CoPI Ladd Keith (University of Arizona); Senior Project Manager Trace Lane (Luskin Center for Innovation); and Program Coordinator Zachary Wampler (Luskin Center for Innovation)
Funder: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration originally supported this project.

PUBLISHED RESEARCH

A Toolkit for Local Planning, Decision-Making, & Action

Partner(s): UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, Arizona State University, and the University of Arizona
Funder: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Integrated Heat Health Information System, and UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation

The Center for Heat Resilient Communities’ collective work has been compiled into a toolkit to help communities assess, plan for, and implement strategies to address extreme heat. It integrates climate modeling, vulnerability assessment, governance, equity, and other considerations to guide data-informed, locally tailored heat action. This toolkit is intended for practitioners and presents a comprehensive framework for heat planning, along with a workbook of interactive activities to help communities identify priority strategies. Practitioners who use the Workbook will ultimately create a strategy document to guide further action.

Download the Toolkit

Author(s): Olga V. Wilhelmi, Mary H Hayden, Peter D Howe, Jennifer Vanos, Sara Meerow, Dana Habeeb, V. Kelly Turner, Cenlin He, Ulrike Passe, Tian Yao, Jose Rodrigo Leal, Rajesh Kumar, Ben Crawford, Kevin Lanza, Alamin Molla, Andrew J Newman, Amanda L Laverty, Jean Claude Iradukunda, Carly Frank and Tammie Visintainer

This research reframes extreme heat as a human-centered risk shaped by environmental, social, and behavioral factors. It highlights advances in heat data and modeling alongside gaps in understanding chronic exposure and vulnerable communities. The authors call for more integrated, cross-disciplinary approaches to improve heat risk assessment and resilience.

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A Menu of Options for the California State Legislature

Author(s): Lana Zimmerman and V. Kelly Turner
Funder: Resources Legacy Fund

We provided a menu of feasible strategies to support the California State Legislature’s ability to facilitate the adoption of mechanical cooling, such as air conditioning, in homes and schools. We focused on home and schools because these are two settings where populations most sensitive to heat—infants, youth, seniors, and those with medical issues—spend the most time. This project was informed by engagement with California legislators, agency staff, nonprofit leaders, and heat legislation research across the country.

Read the report

A Menu of Options for the California State Legislature

Author(s): Lana Zimmerman and V. Kelly Turner
Funder: Resources Legacy Fund

We provided a menu of feasible strategies to support the California State Legislature’s ability to facilitate the adoption of mechanical cooling, such as air conditioning, in homes and schools. We focused on home and schools because these are two settings where populations most sensitive to heat—infants, youth, seniors, and those with medical issues—spend the most time. This project was informed by engagement with California legislators, agency staff, nonprofit leaders, and heat legislation research across the country.

Read the brief

This new tool pinpoints where shade is lacking across 360-plus U.S. cities and towns.

Researcher(s): Dr. V. Kelly Turner, Lana Zimmerman, Isaac Buo, Julia Twichell
Funder: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

This is the first time communities have an accessible way to see how much shade they have, where it is, and whether it comes from buildings or vegetation. The tool, developed in partnership with American Forests, aims to help federal, state, and local decision-makers identify existing “shade deserts” and prioritize investments to mitigate the impacts of extreme heat.

Visit the map | Learn more

Researcher(s): Aaswath Raman, et al., including V. Kelly Turner

The researchers developed and assessed a new approach to make outdoor temperatures feel cooler. The new lightweight, scalable structure that combines water-cooled aluminum panels with a transparent, infrared-reflective polymer film is designed to make outdoor environments feel up to 10°F cooler without obstructing visibility or open space.

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Researcher(s): C.J. Gabbe, Gregory Pierce, Matthew J. Barnett, and Sara Hughes

The researchers used data from the 2020 Residential Energy Consumption Survey and 2021 American Housing Survey to more holistically assess thermal disparities for manufactured housing residents than previous studies. They found that manufactured housing residents have less central AC access and a much higher likelihood of equipment breakdowns. Generally, households they experience the highest cooling costs as a share of their annual income. And they have a greater combination of inadequate insulation. We discuss the implications of these concerning findings for policy and future research.

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Researcher(s): Gregory Pierce, C.J. Gabbe, Lauren Dunlap, et al.

This study examined how small- to medium-sized cities in northern Los Angeles County and the southern San Joaquin Valley are addressing extreme heat in their climate adaptation planning. By analyzing planning documents from 58 cities and conducting 17 interviews with local officials, the researchers found that while most cities acknowledge heat as a concern, actual planning capacity and implementation of heat-related strategies—such as tree canopy and shade infrastructure—remain limited, especially compared to other climate efforts.

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Evaluating tree benefits and care in California schoolyards for climate resilience

Researcher(s): Melody Ng (PhD student, UCLA, Urban Planning) and Jared Coffelt (PhD student, UCLA, Environment and Sustainability)
Funder: UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs and USDA Forest Service

Public schools are key institutions for climate resilience investments in California, including schoolyard tree-planting efforts to mitigate extreme heat. However, past and current policies and other factors have created and reinforced the expansive amount of impervious surfaces in K–12 public schools, a major barrier to greening projects. This report provides recommendations to support depaving efforts.

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Researcher(s): C.J. Gabbe, Jamie Suki Chang, Morayo Kamson, and Euichan Seo
Funder: Santa Clara University Environmental Justice and the Common Good Research Grant

In this study, the researchers identified where unhoused residents in Santa Clara County were disproportionately exposed to heat and how they coped. They found that unhoused participants favored staying in places where they had more stability but these locations tended to have less access to shade and water, thus they faced difficult trade-offs.

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One of the most effective ways to keep people cool is often neglected in urban planning. Cities must work to provide cover and reverse the ‘shade deserts’ common in low-income communities.

Researcher(s): V. Kelly Turner, Ariane Middel, and Jennifer K. Vanos

Shade is an essential solution for hotter cities. The researchers provide specific recommendations for municipal decision-makers to reduce shade deserts which are most experienced by those in low-income communities, exacerbating heat-health disparities.

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Researcher(s): Ladd Keith, C.J. Gabbe, and Erika Schmidt
Funder: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

This study examined five large, climatically-diverse US cities to better understand urban heat governance with a focus on the field of urban planning. The researchers found that aspects of heat planning occur across a variety of municipal plans but only a small number of strategies were explicitly framed in terms of heat, suggesting an opportunity to better connect heat with other policy goals.

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Guidance for an Equitable and Effective State Strategy

Researcher(s): Colleen Callahan, Lauren Dunlap, Michelle Gallarza, Rae Spriggs, and V. Kelly Turner
Funder: Resource Legacy Fund

While California is planning for rising temperatures with its new Extreme Heat Action Plan, the state has not historically treated extreme heat as a social equity and public health crisis that requires targeted and robustly funded action to save lives. Our policy brief series can help inform policy and budget decisions.

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Researcher(s): V. Kelly Turner, Emma M. French, John Dialesandro, and Hana Abdellati

Through analysis of municipal planning documents from 50 large cities across the country, the study found that 78% of these cities’ climate plans mentioned heat as a problem. And yet, few offered a comprehensive strategy to address it — and even fewer addressed the disproportionate impact heat has on low-income residents and communities of color.

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Researcher(s): Gregory Pierce, C.J. Gabbe, and Annabelle Rosser
Funder: California Strategic Growth Council

This study analyzes the risk of extreme heat and wildfires on households living in manufactured housing, such as mobile homes, in California. The authors find that these households face consistently higher exposure to extreme heat and wildfires.

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Author(s): V. Kelly Turner, Emma French, and David Hondula

Researchers developed an open source database of 175 adopted management plans that mention heat from the 50 most populous cities in the US.

View the database

Researcher(s): C.J. Gabbe, Gregory Pierce, Emily Petermann, and Ally Marecek
Funder: Strategic Growth Council Climate Change Research Program

This paper studies municipal heat adaptation using survey and planning data from California. The researchers found that cities with heat-related policies have greater degrees of projected extreme heat, leadership support, environmental justice planning, and smaller Hispanic population shares. In the large cities studies, some strategies, such as expanding tree canopies, have been widely adopted while others have been rarely included.

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Assessing Gaps in State-Level Policies and Funding Opportunities

Researcher(s): J.R. DeShazo, Lolly Lim, and Gregory Pierce
Funder: Strategic Growth Council Climate Change Research Program

This report examines the network of programs and funding opportunities that address heat in the state — most of which do not explicitly or intentionally target heat risk — and identifies the missing pieces that can help protect residents.

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Researcher(s): Ladd Keith, Sara Meerow, David M. Hondula, V. Kelly Turner, and James C. Arnott

This article calls for cities to take action to manage and mitigate heat, with a focus on leadership, policies, and actionable data, with equity as its core. It lays out some common-sense first steps that cities can take.

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Researcher(s): C.J. Gabbe and Gregory Pierce
Funder: California Strategic Growth Council

This study examines whether Californians living in subsidized housing are more vulnerable to extreme heat than those living in unsubsidized housing. The researchers find that subsidized housing is disproportionately located in census tracts at the intersection of high projected extreme heat days (in 2040s), heat-sensitive populations, and barriers to adaptation. These findings indicate the need for targeted housing and land use policy interventions to reduce heat vulnerability.

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