Projects and Studies

Extreme temperatures already claim more lives around the world than any other natural hazard and under climate change this risk is increasing. Nevertheless, whilst the scale of the problem is increasingly recognised, understanding the lived experience of excess heat is a major research challenge.

A key issue facing such efforts is that heat stress is socially as well as geographically determined. The thermal experience of climate change is thus determined both by one’s position in space, and one’s position in society. The jobs we do, the roles we play in society, the conditions we work in, and our freedom within those roles, all shape our exposure to the changing climate. Recognising that the complexity and uniqueness of the climate crisis means we cannot continue to plan for it using the tools of the past, Oppressive Heat brings together a brand new suite of conceptual and methodological tools with which to analyse, interpret and address the dynamic global geography of thermal exposure under climate change.

Focusing on Cambodia, one of the world’s hottest and most humid countries, Oppressive Heat will show how climate impacts are shaped by positionality within the dynamic and interconnected global workplace. Aiming to initiate and develop a crucial new social-environmental scientific nexus on the working body under climate change, we work actively with governments, unions and scholars to reshape global understanding of heat stress in our warming world.

Pregnant women from socioeconomically disadvantaged populations living in tropical climates are most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Extreme heat has been linked to preterm birth, fetal growth restriction, stillbirth and preeclampsia. We aim to describe how extreme heat leads to these outcomes by studying in detail heat exposure and physiological responses in women across India. Our study involves three linked activities. We will use the Garbh-Ini retrospective cohort (10 000 mother-baby pairs) to identify biomarkers and clinical factors associated with heat exposure and adverse outcomes. We will also describe how the fetal heart rate changes with heat exposure by studying a large database of 110 000 antenatal fetal heart traces recorded across India. These findings will inform a prospective, matched cohort study of 600 women vulnerable to heat stress across three different climate zones. Using state-of-the-art climate, imaging and laboratory diagnostics, we will study how heat exposures affect maternal, placental, fetal and lactational function. We will capture women?s lived experiences with heat, identifying opportunities for local heat adaptation. As findings emerge, we will bring together policymakers, researchers, clinicians and people living with heat to develop practical policies and actions that will protect women and their babies.

Heat stress and strain result in heat-related illnesses that affect an individual´s ability to work and reduce economic productivity at the community level. While the body maintains a heat balance through the thermoregulatory system, an increase in heat load overwhelms the body leading to illness. Global warming is expected to exacerbate heat-related illnesses, especially in Africa. To mitigate these consequences, it is important to maintain indoor temperatures within recommended thermal comfort zones. This is achieved through openings on dwellings such as doors, windows, and eaves. These openings are often not oriented to achieve cooling indoors, and double up as entry points for malaria mosquitoes further risking the health of occupants. We propose to implement simple house modifications with screened windows, doors, and eaves to provide cooling while preventing indoor entry of mosquitoes ultimately attaining thermal comfort and lowering the incidence of malaria.

The UN has declared 2021-2030 as the decade of ecosystem restoration, and identified trees in agricultural landscapes as a viable means of meeting sustainable development goals. This is due to the pivotal role of trees in climate change adaptation and mitigation. The human health benefits of such restoration in mitigating against heat-stress is poorly evidenced. Outdoor agricultural workers are among the worst affected by extreme heat exposure. In Tanzania, this workforce forms 70% of the working population, making heat exposure both a health and economic concern. The proposed study will be most comprehensive work to date, evaluating the role of trees in mitigating the health effects of extreme heat exposure on agricultural workers. We will work with local and international experts in medicine, epidemiology, forestry, climatology, agriculture, and anthropology, and build on our land restoration work in Tanzania which has championed local farmers to regenerate 9 million native trees. The research will start by understanding heat risk and local adaptation practices, and thereafter, evaluate how trees on croplands alter microclimates to potentially protect workers against chronic kidney disease, dehydration, and cardiovascular strain. The findings will be disseminated through bespoke education and training packages co-developed and co-delivered with local stakeholders.

Increasing heat exposure will profoundly influence human health in the following decades, particularly in climate-vulnerable countries in Southeast Asia. In Malaysia, heat-related mortality is projected to increase by 295 percent by 2030. More heatwaves will increase, as will severe rainstorms and tropical cyclones. To strengthen heat adaptation in Southeast Asia, we will evaluate simple behavioral and structural interventions that have the potential to protect vulnerable communities from the health effects of extreme heat. Addressing climate change and health requires fundamental behavioral changes in individuals and communities to prevent them from the adverse health effects of heat. We will introduce interventions that will strengthen heat health literacy and fluency for individuals and communities (behavioral intervention). Climate change adaptation is critical for vulnerable groups to cope with rising average temperatures and severe heat waves. As a structural intervention, we will test a passive cooling (cool roof) technology to decrease indoor exposure to extreme heat. The South East Asia Community Observatory (SEACO) health and demographic surveillance system (HDSS) serves as a solid foundation to conduct these interventions, equipping it with individual, home-based, and community-based sensors to enable cutting-edge climate change and health research, focusing on heat effects on health.

Robust evaluation of the environmental, health and socio-economic outcomes of heat adaptations are limited for Africa, especially in real-world settings, despite high vulnerability to heat-related health risk. HABVIA aims to address these evidence gaps by gathering high-quality cohort data on physiological and mental health, alongside climate, environmental and socio-economic information, in four heat-vulnerable study sites in Ghana and South Africa where heat adaptations are underway or can easily be implemented because of pre-existing community-health research partnerships. The project will focus on physical and behavioural adaptation for two vulnerable groups, manual labourers and informal/low-income house dwellers, as well as the development and testing of adaptation-relevant heat warning systems. Capacity building of African health-climate researchers will be leveraged via two African research assistants who will enroll for PhDs, one UK PhD student, ideally from a developing country, three African post-doctoral researchers, development and delivery of heat-adaptation summer/winter training schools, and pro-active engagement in the growing Africa and global health-climate communities of practice. HABVIA’s interdisciplinary team comprises leading researchers from climate risk and adaptation science, climate-health research, public health, international development and behavioural science, with collaborators from national meteorological agencies and humanitarian/development non-governmental organisations.

Rural community members in Low and Middle Income Countries (LMIC) are particularly vulnerable to heat-related illness (HRI) due to their reduced access to healthcare, significant numbers of outdoor workers namely in agriculture, aging demographics, and higher rates of poverty and marginalization. At the same time, Action plans that include an early warning system, capacity building for healthcare workers to identify, prevent, or treat heat-related illness, and information dissemination have been shown to consistently positive results that aide the public in understanding and evaluating their own risks and take the appropriate steps for prevention and preparedness. The goal of this project, therefore, is to reduce HRI and mortality rates in our rural partner communities in southern Mexico through the development of a community-based heat action plan. Working in six rural communities of similar size and socio-economic profiles, our team will co-develop, test, and evaluate a locally relevant, culturally appropriate, user-driven heat-health action plan consisting of an 1) early warning and surveillance system, 2) capacity building and network for healthcare workers to identify and respond to HRI, and 3) prevention education and communication tools to address local heat-health risk management challenges including an inter-community information sharing network and communication platform.

Adaptation is essential for mitigating adverse human health effects from increasing heat exposure. However, we currently lack evidence – generated through empirical studies – guiding the uptake of interventions to reduce heat stress in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Preliminary findings from our ongoing trial in Nouna, Burkina Faso, show that affordable sunlight reflecting cool-roof coatings reduces indoor temperature up to 2.7 °C leading to possible health benefits. We leverage our expertise in executing housing-health intervention trials to conduct a global multi-centre study of cool-roof effectiveness on health (environmental and economic) outcomes in four urban LMICs – Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso (sub-Saharan Africa), Ahmedabad, India (Asia), Niue (Oceania), and Sonora, Mexico (Latin America). Selected sites represent hotspots where people experience a triple burden from heat exposure, chronic health issues and vulnerable housing conditions (slums, informal settlements and low socioeconomic housing). The four sites exhibit diversity in climate profiles, level of socioeconomic development, population density and rates of urbanisation. Our trial will test the reproducibility of results globally and quantify whether cool roofs are an effective passive home cooling intervention with beneficial health effects for vulnerable populations. Findings will inform global policy responses on adaptation to increasing heat exposure from climate change.

Temperatures in Southern Africa are rising at twice the global rate, with major health implications for maternal and newborn health. The HAPI study aims to advance heat-adaptation policies and practices in low- and middle-income countries. We will develop and test a multi-level (from individual- to international policy-level) and multi-component intervention, encompassing behavioural, built environment, nature-based, health services, and policy components. Following multi-layered ethnographic observations, and thermal, emissions and cost-consequences modelling, we will co-produce an intervention package based on progressively-optimised programme theory. The intervention will be refined over two action-research cycles, each lasting six months. We will apply a quasi-experimental design involving 1600 women pre- and post-intervention to assess process, feasibility, cost and biomedical outcomes. Activities will take place in six maternity facilities, and surrounding communities and households in urban Tshwane, South Africa, and rural Mount Darwin District, Zimbabwe. These areas have contrasting climatic conditions, economies, and socio-cultural practices, allowing for greater transferability of findings. The study builds on a Horizons Europe project and related field experience. Capacity-building at individual-, institutional- and societal-level will be integrated into all research activities, and take place within inclusive and diverse research environments. Key words: Climate change, maternal and newborn health, heat-related adaptation, southern Africa

Climate change has resulted in increased average global temperatures and increased number, duration and intensity of extreme heat events with South Asia emerging as one of the worst affected regions. The objectives of this study are to 1)synthesize global evidence-base of community interventions for heat adaptation/reduction strategies; 2)conduct an assessment of feasibility and acceptance of possible interventions through community participation and pilot testing; 3)evaluate a heat adaptation and reduction bundle (HAB) comprising of education, behavioural change and incentivized structural interventions through a cluster randomized controlled trial(cRCT). The intervention will be implemented in a representative urban and rural setting of Pakistan and target children, women including pregnant women, and other vulnerable adult labourers and elderly. The cRCT will primarily evaluate the impact of HAB on heat-related illnesses and a range of secondary outcomes including standardized heat measurements at household level, physiological strain, dehydration, thermal comfort/sensation, sleep hygiene, pregnancy outcomes (gestational weight gain, low birthweight, preterm births, stillbirths), mental health and overall cost effectiveness 4)assess the feasibility, and generalisability of scaling up the trial findings. This project will emphasize capacity building and gender equity and findings will be disseminated to relevant policy makers and researchers globally for potential uptake in other LMICs.

HEATS (Heat Exposure, AcTivity, and Sleep) is a three-year, multi-institutional project focused on improving sleep outcomes for people exposed to heat. Funded by the Singapore National Research Foundation, the project will develop technological and behavioral solutions to minimize heat exposure for improved sleep.

The project is structured as three distinct and complementary components: 1) continuous monitoring of more than 100 working-age persons over several months to study the effect of heat exposure on sleep, 2) develop and evaluate a novel bedroom and worker dormitories cooling solution, and 3) deploy and test personalized smartphone nudging strategies to improve sleep environments.

The project team is comprised of researchers from University of California, Berkeley, the National University of Singapore, and The University of Sydney. The expertise of the 6-member team includes thermal physiology, sleep quality, indoor environmental quality, thermal comfort, and machine learning. The Principal Investigators are Stefano Schiavon (UC Berkeley) and Jason Kai Wei Lee (NUS). Co-Investigators include June Chi Yan Lo (NUS), Clayton Miller (NUS), Thomas Parkinson (The University of Sydney), and Hui Zhang (UC Berkeley).

The HIGH Horizons project addresses key knowledge gaps around the quantification and monitoring of direct and indirect impacts of heat exposure on maternal, newborn and child health. Pregnant women, infants and health workers serve as sentinel populations for tracking climate change impacts, adaptations and co-benefits. Protecting these vulnerable populations is critical and ensures a healthy future for the next generations.

With heat adaptation interventions such as modifications to health facilities (e.g. passive cooling systems, reflective white paint on the roofs,…) and effective messaging through smartphones to accompany heat stress notifications to pregnant and postpartum women and mothers of infants, the burden of adverse health outcomes may be reduced as depicted in the below graph where the area under the curve represents the number of potential adverse health outcomes on pregnant women, infants and health workers.

The HIGH Horizons project includes 11 partners across 10 countries in Europe and Africa and encompasses activities in both the European Union (EU) and sub-Saharan Africa. Jointly the HIGH Horizons partners will quantify and monitor direct and indirect health impacts of extreme heat; test a personalised Early Warning System (EWS); and implement integrated adaptation-mitigation actions in health facilities.

As climate change continues to intensify, so will the adverse effects of extreme heat for LMIC communities living in climate hotspots in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Oceania. Identifying effective climate change adaptation interventions that can be implemented in these diverse communities will support people, organisations, and governments to make climate change adaptation investment decisions. Therefore, this project aims to address extreme heat effects using cool roofs as an efficient solution for lowering indoor temperatures without the need for expensive air conditioning or other energy-intensive coolers. Its benefits encompass passive operation, low-cost, and durability. Cool roofs can work to mitigate adverse health, environmental, and economic impacts by:

• Reflecting sunlight​ to reduce indoor temperatures​
• Improving occupant comfort and health
• Increasing occupant productivity ​
• ​Lowering energy use ​

This collaborative research project entitled “Economic and Health Impact Assessment of Heat Adaptation Action: Case Studies from India” brings together researchers from diverse disciplines, to expand on evidence relating to heat-health risks and adaptation to reduce adverse health and economic outcomes.

This research is a collaboration between Purnamita Dasgupta (Lead institution: Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi), and partners including Kristie L Ebi (University of Washington, Seattle), Rupa Kumar Kolli (Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune), Meeta Mehra (Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi), Rajib Dasgupta (Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi), Clare Heaviside (University College London, London), Pankaja Raghav (All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Jodhpur) and Arabinda Mishra (Development and Environment Futures Trust, Bhubaneswar). The research is funded by the Wellcome Trust.

ABOUT THE PROJECT

Heat Stress is a growing concern in India, although the magnitude and pattern of health risks and impacts are insufficiently understood. Effective interventions are needed in the context of increasing frequency and intensity of heat waves, associated with global warming, to protect those most at risk such as the elderly, outdoor workers and children in low resource settings.

This 5-year research project adopts a pluralistic approach for the design and conduct of the study, combining qualitative and quantitative methods to:

1. assess the magnitude, patterns and determinants of heat stress-related economic and health impacts in India, and
2. identify the most effective interventions for heat-health adaptation, specifically among selected urban communities in Bhubaneswar (Odisha) close to the east coast of India and Jodhpur (Rajasthan) in the arid region of northwest India.

The project will evaluate the effectiveness of interventions within Heat Action Plans, as well as pilot and evaluate additional (household) adaptation measures for reducing heat-related health risks in children, elderly and outdoor workers, including gender-differentiated aspects.

The key outcomes expected from the research include:

• mapping of heat-stress exposure pathways;
• quantification of heat-related health outcomes in terms of morbidity and mortality indicators;
• socio-economic correlates with healthcare seeking behaviour of households;
• assessment of ongoing programs and policies to manage heat-health outcomes such as Heat Action Plans, Disaster Management Plans and Urban Health policies and programs including Universal Health coverage;
• identification of additional potentially more effective interventions from adaptation pilots amongst vulnerable groups;
• potential for improvements in urban green infrastructure for heat-health risk reduction;
• cost estimates of heat-health impacts in the community and cost-effectiveness of interventions to reduce health risks;
• capacity building, awareness creation and strengthened policy engagement.

The outcomes will be synthesized to document and quantify the effectiveness of interventions on the key domains of heat-health risk reduction, economic feasibility, social acceptability, and regulatory and policy viability for heat-health adaptation interventions, highlighting lessons for policy and practice in low and middle-income country contexts.

Global warming is expected to exacerbate heat-related illness, especially in Africa. This not only has an impact on an individual’s health, but also their ability to work, and therefore reduces the economic productivity at a community level. Simple modifications to doors, windows and eaves in a home could help to alleviate these effects. Dr Abong’o will lead a team investigating the effectiveness of simple housing modifications, assessing their impact on cooling internal temperatures as well as their ability to lower the incidence of malaria by preventing indoor entry of mosquitoes.

In Southeast Asia, annual heat-related mortality is projected to increase by 295% by 2030 if there is no adaptation. To strengthen heat adaptation in Malaysia, Professor Tin Tin Su and her team will evaluate simple behavioural and structural interventions that have the potential to protect vulnerable communities from the health effects of extreme heat. They will introduce interventions that will improve heat health literacy and fluency for individuals and communities and test a passive cooling technology to decrease indoor exposure to extreme heat.

South Asia is one of the regions most affected by increasing global temperatures and extreme heat events, but more evidence is needed to determine the most appropriate strategies for heat adaptation and harm reduction. Through community participation and pilot testing, this study will assess a possible package of heat-health interventions in representative urban and rural settings in Pakistan. Professor Bhutta and the team will also review global evidence of community-based heat adaptation strategies and use this to evaluate and implement a locally appropriate heat adaptation and reduction plan.

Rural communities in low- and middle-income countries are particularly vulnerable to heat-related illnesses. Heat action plans that aide the public in understanding and evaluating their own risks and take the appropriate steps for prevention and preparedness have shown consistently positive results. Working in six rural communities in southern Mexico, Dr Riojas and the team will co-develop, test and evaluate a user-driven heat-health action plan, including an early warning and surveillance system, capacity building, prevention education and communication tools.

The negative impacts of heat exposure on maternal and child health outcomes are well documented, but there is little evidence to help us understand how best to reduce the risk of extreme heat on pregnant women. Professor Chersich will lead this study investigating a range of potential protective mechanisms, covering behavioural, built environment and environmental innovations. The team will work across six maternity facilities and the surrounding communities of urban areas in South Africa and semi-rural parts of Zimbabwe.

Despite a high vulnerability to heat-related health risks, interventions which investigate and implement heat adaptions are lacking in sub-Saharan Africa. Professors New and Dugas, and their collaborators, hope to address this evidence gap by evaluating physical and behavioural adaptations among manual labourers and low-income house dwellers in four study sites across Ghana and South Africa. The study will also develop and test heat warning systems to support these adaptations and gather high-quality data on physiological and mental health, as well as key climate, environmental and socio-economic variables.

Low- and middle-income countries are severely affected by climate change, but evidence for guiding uptake of suitable interventions is currently limited. Dr Tukuitonga and Dr Bunker will lead a global multi-centre trial in Burkina Faso, India, Niue and Mexico to assess the effects of affordable, sunlight-reflecting cool-roof coatings — an effective home cooling intervention — on health, environmental and economic outcomes for vulnerable populations. The findings will inform global adaptation and policy responses to increasing heat exposure from climate change.

Tree restoration plays an important role in climate change mitigation and adaptation. However, we don’t yet have evidence of the human health benefits of this restoration or the impact it has on reducing heat stress. Dr Chiwanga will lead this comprehensive study to evaluate how trees can be used to alter microclimates and protect Tanzania’s millions of outdoor agricultural workers from the long-term health risks of heat exposure. The research will build on land restoration work in central Tanzania which has championed local farmers to regenerate nine million native trees in three years.

Schools are hubs for their surrounding community, connecting parents, teachers, children, and families. Hence, the heat conditions at schools, as well as their preparedness and policies for managing extreme heat, impact multiple aspects of the community. However, minimal attention has been paid to formalizing school heat preparedness, ensuring their ability to mitigate the effects of high temperatures on the health and education of students. Since commencing in 2017, this project has sought to improve the safety and protection measures for children exposed to extreme heat during the school day by understanding the important factors for becoming a HeatReady School. We define HeatReady Schools as those that are increasingly able to identify, prepare for, mitigate, track, and respond to the negative impacts of schoolground heat (Shortridge et al., 2021). Through this research, we have improved our understanding of how people perceive and react to heat emergencies, as well as what actions are taken at the school level to mitigate their effects. Based on interviews with key stakeholders, we have gauged the effectiveness of existing heat preparedness actions at schools in the Phoenix area. Our thirty final recommendations based on five action areas (raining, prevention, school policy, community, and environment) are providing important “HeatReady” actions that can be applied or adapted for various school contexts and/or climate regions. To date, we have reached over 30 schools and community centers utilizing HeatReady Schools resources, a number that continues to grow. We have also created a HeatReady Schools growth tree and rubric, share numerous resources with our members, and have developed multiple training resources for schools to leverage (e.g., Bilingual K-12 Summer Emergency Preparedness course, HeatReady Teacher Training). These trainings also support work within HeatReady Neighborhoods, within which schools are a critical player for heat readiness.

A project developing low-cost options for reducing heat stress in urban contexts.

This project brings together an expert, interdisciplinary team to investigate the impacts of flooding and extreme heat on urban infrastructure and the resultant consequences for the livelihoods of poor urban residents in Ghana.

Many cities in the global South are increasingly experiencing extreme weather events, which are having devastating impacts on infrastructure and human lives. The main aims of “Vulnerability to Extreme Weather Events in Cities: Implications for Infrastructure and Livelihoods” (VEWEC) are to:

• Refine methods for mapping ‘hotspots’ of vulnerability and predicting flooding and extreme heat in cities by drawing on existing climate data
• Examine the impact of flooding and extreme heat on water, electricity and health services
• Analyse the impact of reduced service levels during extreme weather events on the income-generating activities of the urban poor
• Co-produce adaptive strategies to extreme weather events with residents, service providers and policymakers

The cities of Accra and Tamale, with their differing climates, urban form and size, infrastructure and governance systems, provide contrasting cases within one national context. This project focuses on four areas within each city that have been selected as representative of neighbourhoods suffering from either flooding and/or extreme temperatures. For Accra these are Odawna, Bortianor, Agbogbloshie and Alajo. For Tamale they are Gumani, Sakasaka, Kukuo and Lamashegu.

Put simply, key questions being asked include:

• Where, when and how are climate hazards impacting Accra and Tamale?
• What actions are already being taken by communities and service providers to adapt to flooding and extreme temperatures?
• What further action could be taken?

The views and experiences of key stakeholders and residents of the study communities are being sought using qualitative methods, including in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. Household-level temperature data will be collected using tiny-tag sensors located within and outside houses and businesses.

This collaborative research is being conducted by climate scientists, human geographers, health specialists and infrastructure engineers based at Loughborough University, the University of Ghana, and the University for Development Studies (Tamale).

The project “Integrating Gender-Sensitive Heat Adaptation Plans in the climate policy and guidelines of selected cities in South Asia” is funded by Asia- Pacific Network for Global Change Research (APN).

Integrated Research and Action for Development (IRADe),  supported by International Development Research Centre, worked with three cities viz. Rajkot, Bhubaneshwar and New Delhi Municipal  Corporation (Delhi) in India to design and develop climate-adaptive heat action plans. The project also led to setting up the South Asian Heat Health Information Network (SAHHIN), which has been accredited with World Health Organization (WHO) and Global Heat Health Information Network (GHHIN).

This project aims to further support South-Asia’s medium-term development planning, especially in prioritizing and integrating adaptive resilience within the agenda of climate-resilient smart cities. It will disseminate knowledge on heat stress management strategies, including the development of spatially differentiated and gender-sensitive Heat Adaptation Plan (HAP) in South Asian countries of Sri Lanka (Colombo), India (Surat) and Bangladesh (Rajshahi).

Project Aim:

• To disseminate knowledge on heat stress management strategies, including the development of spatially differentiated and gender-sensitive Heat Adaptation Plan (HAP) in the South Asian countries of Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and India.

Objectives:

• Disseminate knowledge of a replicable spatially differentiated and gender-sensitive Heat Adaptation Plan.
• Local-level stakeholder’s capacity building for better institutionalization and adoption of the newly developed strategies.
• Develop an effective communication strategy to ensure broader outreach and dissemination among different levels of stakeholders

Outcomes:

Support South Asia’s medium-term development planning, especially in prioritizing and integrating adaptive resilience within the agenda of climate-resilient smart cities.

Contacts:

Project Lead: Mr. Rohit Magotra. IRADe, India. r.magotra@irade.org

Collaborators: Ms. Nimisha Jha. IRADe, India. njha@irade.org

Mr. Damitha Samarakoon. SLYCAN Trust, Bangladesh. damitha@slycantrust.org

Mr.Sarder Shafiqul Alam. ICCCAD, Sri Lanka. sarder.shafiqul@icccad.org

Dr.Vikas Desai. UHCRCE, Surat. psmvikas@hotmail.com

This project will synthesize evidence and support decision-making to protect people from overheating in indoor environments.

Heatwaves in Canada are becoming more intense and lasting for longer periods. Heat waves can pose a serious risk to the wellbeing of many Canadians. Developing robust localized heat health warning systems are important to prevent heat-related illnesses, provide heat-relief programs, guide policy and municipal planning, and may help to prevent deaths from extreme heat.

This study will use thermostats to collect indoor temperature to see if indoor temperatures are higher than outdoor temperatures. The study will take place from May 1, 2022 to September 30, 2022.

COSMA is a multidisciplinary study that will bring together a group of experts in urban meteorology, building environmental engineering, architecture, urban planning and social science, to work with local stakeholders to understand the overheating risk in the urban area of Colombo. This project is funded by NERC (Natural Environment Research Council) in the UK.

At the heart of the project are the studies of:

• how the heatwave overheating risk prediction and assessment could be improved at finer urban and building scales
• the useful indigenous design knowledge in Sri Lanka for heatwaves mitigtion, and
• how the designs could be regenerated and re-incorporated into the heatwave action plan and future design practice

COSMA aims to develop an integrated modelling approach by taking into account the urban heat island, building characteristics and vulnerable population to build effective early-warning systems and a city-scale heat action plan. The final outputs of the project will be a series of hierarchical overheating risk and mitigation potential maps across different scales for Colombo, Sri Lanka.

COSMA is a multidisciplinary study that will bring together a group of experts in urban meteorology, building environmental engineering, architecture, urban planning and social science, to work with local stakeholders to deliver SHEAR programme objectives. By working closely with the local community, government and professionals, one important goal of COSMA project is to harvest and regenerate traditional design knowledge (both building and urban scales) from indigenous craftsmen embedded within local culture and traditions, and feed into the heat-exposure risk mitigation plan.

COSMA, led by the University of Reading (UoR), involves collaborations with Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU), and carried out in partnership with a group of well-established Sri Lankan partners: the Department of Meteorology (DoM) and the Institute of Town Planners Sri Lanka(ITPSL) as well as researchers at University of Moratuwa (UoM).

The HE²AT Center aims to develop innovative solutions to mitigate the health impacts of climate change in Africa, including Early Warning Systems and monitoring systems. The Center also aims to build capacity on data science and climate change, and to be a resource for climate change initiatives across the continent.

Background

Heat waves and rising temperatures have major, though underappreciated, health implications, particularly among vulnerable populations in low-income settings in Africa. Big data and data science methods can identify promising adaptation interventions and optimise programmes to reduce the impacts of climate change. The current Early Warning Systems in Africa function poorly and are not based on actual health outcome data. Moreover, there is limited knowledge on how to monitor the burden of climate change on health and the effectiveness of relevant health services.

Methods

The HE²AT Center is a U54 grant within the NIH Harnessing Data Science for Health Discovery and Innovation in Africa (DS-I Africa) programme. DS-I Africa is the NIH flagship programme of research in Africa, with USD 62,000,000 funding. The consortium consists of a trans-disciplinary group of academic and non-academic partners from three regions of Africa, and the United States. The study includes partners in South Africa, Côte d’Ivoire and Kenya, with a focus on activities in these countries. The Center includes two sub-projects. Firstly, a project to document the impacts of extreme heat on maternal and newborn health across Africa using existing data from research projects and routine health information systems. We will draw on data from all countries on the continent where data are available. These analyses will also test different indicators of the impacts of extreme heat on health. The second project will investigate the urban heat island effect in Johannesburg, South Africa and Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, using multiple data sources from satellites on the natural (e.g., vegetation) and the built environment, combined with weather, air pollution, and health outcome data. We will use health outcome data from large clinical trials and cohorts which has the geolocation of participants houses allowing for very precise measurements of the exposure of these individuals to heat and other environmental risk factors. Based on these analyses we will design an Early Warning System that can warn people when an extreme heat event is forecast. Risk strata will be generates in the Early Warning System, based on the risk profiles of specific risk groups, determined by a machine learning algorithm which takes into account forecasted weather conditions, characteristics such as age, geolocation and other factors that drive risk. The current approach to Early Warning Systems involves a single cut-off temperature threshold that is meant to represent risk for all members of the population. Tis approach lacks sensitivity as the health risks of extreme heat vary between population groups several fold. We will pilot a range of communication channels to deliver risk warnings tailored to different risk groups. This includes using an existing smartphone App (ClimApp). Most importantly, the HE²AT Center serves as a platform for other research projects or programmes related to climate change and health in Africa.

Relevance to the Green Climate Fund and Adaptation Fund The HE²AT Center provides a platform which has the potential to monitor projects funded by the Green Climate Fund, and to identify which interventions should be prioritised in funding proposals. Data science analytics could make a major contribution to optimising climate change and health projects. The prototype Early Warning Systems and monitoring systems that we develop could be adapted to different settings and population groups included in Green Climate Fund applications.

Timelines and anticipated impact Over a five to ten year period, the HE²AT Center will have established a data science and analytical platform capable of documenting the impacts of extreme heat, informing sensitive Early Warning Systems and monitoring systems across sub-Saharan Africa.

Other project partners University of Cape Town, South Africa; Aga Khan University, Kenya; University Peleforo Gon Coulibaly of Korhogo, Côte d’Ivoire; IBM Research Africa; University of Michigan; and University of Washington

Donor

US National Institutes of Health (NIH)

Latest Update: 02 February 2022

For more about HE²AT Center please email rhicomms@wrhi.ac.za

Road pavement is a known contributor to the urban heat island effect. Several vendors are providing engineered pavements coatings – known as “cool pavement” – to reflect light and therefore heat to reduce the thermal load of roads. The City of Tucson is planning a pilot application of a cool pavement in Fall 2021 as a part of its Parks and Connections Bond work; our team has been working with the city and vendor(s) to set up an evaluation framework of the cool pavement.

Few of these cool pavements have been evaluated outside lab conditions, particularly in the desert southwest. Lab testing tends to rely heavily on surface temperature measurements with the assumption that lower surface temperatures result in the pavement being less of a heat sink and thus lowers ambient temperatures in real-world practice. Further, while heat is detrimental to the pedestrian and cyclist experience and health, almost no research exists documenting the experience of the cool pavement on active travelers including their perception of heat.

We propose a pre/post, case/control quasi-experimental design to evaluate the impacts of the cool pavement on the following heat metrics:

• Surface temperatures of the pavement
• Ambient temperatures of the area
• Thermal comfort as measured by wet bulb globe temperature (WBGT) – Governmental occupational guidance for exertion for heat is based on studies in industrial settings using wet-bulb globe temperature (WBGT), a heat index that incorporates ambient air temperature, humidity, airflow, and radiant solar heat. Known as “thermal comfort”, this index better mirrors the human – and thus pedestrian and cyclist – experience.

We anticipate four 12-hour days in the field. Each day will include seven Kestrel 5400 stations for ambient and WBGT temperatures at least every minute and surface temperatures every hour. Data will be managed and analyzed in R; outputs will include basic summary statistics, graphics, and regression analysis.

Our team has steadily increased capacity for such research over the past 2 years. In summer of 2019, Iroz-Elardo and Keith piloted a methodology to investigate how shade structures and surface materials in school gardens and play structures influenced thermal comfort as measured with a WBGT instrument and thermal heat guns. In late-spring 2020, Keith and Iroz-Elardo applied this knowledge to evaluate heat risk at COVID-19 vaccine point of distribution (POD) drive-in centers in Tucson. One of the more interesting preliminary findings from the vaccine POD evaluation was the extent to which idling vehicles appear to raise the WBGT in outdoor settings due to both mechanical and radiant heat.

Impact of environmental thermal stress on workers’ health and productivity: intervention strategies and development of an integrated weather-climatic and epidemiological heat health warning system for various occupational sectors (WORKLIMATE)

The aim of the project is to deepen, especially through the INAIL injury database, the knowledge on the effect of environmental thermal stress conditions on workers (in particular heat), with specific attention to the estimation of the social costs of injuries at work. Organizational solutions and useful operational procedures in different occupational fields (or tasks), currently not yet available, will also be proposed through the organization of ad hoc case studies in selected companies in the areas of central Italy, a survey on the perception of risk linked to exposure to extreme temperatures will carried out too. An integrated weather-climatic and epidemiological heat health warning system, specific for the occupational sector, will be developed. The heat health warning system will consist of a web forecasting platform and a web app that will provide personalized forecasts based on the individual characteristics of workers and those of the work environment (work in the sun or in shade areas). The project products will be enhanced and made available by the Italian Physical Agents Platform (PAF) in order to provide concrete and operational support helpful not only for workers but also for all actors involved in the occupational prevention and protection process.

Project Heatsafe is a collaborative, multi-disciplinary research project in Southeast Asia that focuses on the protection of people from rising temperatures due to climate change.

The project is based in the National University of Singapore. The research team includes physiologists, economists, geographers, epidemiologists, and scientists from a range of disciplines.

2020 was officially the hottest year on record — never in history has the human race faced such an urgent threat due to heat exposure. Project Heatsafe aims to understand how our warming climate affects our health and work productivity, especially in exertional populations, as well as identify sustainable preventive policies and actions that can reduce these impacts.

ClimApp is an ongoing European project to develop a mobile tool to translate climate service into personalized adaptation strategies to cope with thermal stress including heat and cold stress.

This research project was developed to fill specific gaps in evidence and data on access to cooling across cities in India, Pakistan, Cameroon and Indonesia. The research design is organised around three main research questions, each anchored in theoretical debates and bodies of academic scholarship:

i. Heat, Inequality and Gender

ii. Cool Infrastructures

iii. Thermal Practices, Needs and Capacities

Cool Infrastructures is a collaboration between research institutions in Scotland, Cameroon, Pakistan, India, Indonesia, France, Germany and Singapore.

The (SIETO) project has produced a national weather and climate risk assessment, focusing in particular on the vulnerabilities of different sectors to hydro-meteorological and climatological hazards. The risk assessment of the project was also used to develop the governance model for future risk assessments. The results of the project support the implementation of the National Climate Change Adaptation Plan 2022 and provide material for the national, EU and global level governance frameworks of weather and climate risk management.

The overall objective of the project is to produce new knowledge on the effects of high temperatures on human health in northern areas, and to provide cost-effective and socially acceptable solutions to adapt to climate change. The consortium project is genuinely multidisciplinary, covering natural, health, and social sciences and engineering, which enables versatile approaches to research questions. The project is coordinated by the University of Eastern Finland; other participants are Aalto University, Finnish Meteorological Institute, and Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare.

During the project, epidemiological analyses of health register data will be performed to evaluate the effects of heat and heatwaves on morbidity and mortality, and to identify susceptible population groups. Social and economic determinants of heat vulnerability will be evaluated using a questionnaire study, complemented with interviews and scenario work. A field study, including environmental and physiological measurements, will be conducted to create thermal comfort models for vulnerable population groups, and to evaluate the efficiency of local cooling methods. Climate modelling will be conducted to improve heat wave predictions for early warning systems and climate scenarios, and to calculate of cooling capacity needs in future climate.

In the last, integrative step of the project, health impact of heat in different climate, societal and adaptation scenarios will be assessed. Results will be used to guide policy makers on the scaling and targeting of adaptation measures. Central questions to be answered include:

• How will the burden of disease caused by heat change in Finland because of climate change?
• Which adaptation options are most efficient considering health effects, costs of the measures, and greenhouse gas emissions?
• How do the costs of adaptation and health effects affect the Finnish economy?

Climate change is increasing the frequency, intensity and duration of hot weather in South Asia. When it comes to health, the most detrimental impacts from extreme heat often occur in cities in developing nations, where large populations can become exposed and capacity to prepare and respond is low. In 2015 Karachi, Pakistan, experienced a severe heatwave that caused over 1,200 deaths and over 40,000 cases of heat illness. This heatwave caught government and first responders off-guard, highlighting the need for inter-agency coordination, clarity in roles, and a management plan.

How We Helped & Our Project’s Impacts

Between November 2016 and April 2017, and with funding from the Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN), ESSA and The Urban Unit delivered Karachi’s first Heatwave Management Plan. The Plan builds on the analysis of data from the June 2015 event, as well as input gathered over several stakeholder outreach and engagement sessions. The Management Plan outlines what should happen before, during and after periods of extreme heat in Karachi. It sets out strategies that government and non-government agencies will take together to prevent heat-related illness and death in Karachi and equip the public, particularly the most vulnerable residents, to take protective action. The Management Plan was approved by the City, which has committed to resourcing it and making it operational. It includes an evaluation framework and proposed indicators, which will facilitate annual performance reviews.

As part of the work, ESSA also delivered a Regional Toolkit for Heatwave Management in Asian Cities. The Toolkit is intended for use by local authorities and stakeholders in other large Asian cities so the health risks of extreme heat could be integrated into disaster management, public health and land use planning. It includes guidance to develop and implement a heatwave management plan, examples highlighting cities’ experiences in preparing for and responding to heatwaves, templates, checklists and sample communications material. The chair of Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority is “hopeful that this Toolkit will serve as an important contribution in the efforts to make our cities resilient and sustainable.”

Western Sydney is hot and is set to get hotter as green fields make way for new housing developments; exacerbating what scientists call the urban heat island effect. Extreme heat causes major liveability and resilience problems with critical impacts for human health, infrastructure, emergency services and the natural environment.

Turn Down the Heat is a WSROC-led initiative that takes a collaborative, multi-sector approach to tackling urban heat in Western Sydney. The initiative is guided by the Turn Down the Heat Strategy (launched in December 2018). Developed with the input of 55 different organisations, the Strategy lays out a five-year plan for a cooler, more liveable and resilient future.

The pilot project envisages the introduction of Forecast-based Action (FbA) in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to reduce the humanitarian impact of the increasing number extreme weather events on the population. The focus is on the development of Early Action Protocols (EAPs) in order to mitigate the impact from cold waves and heat waves in rural parts of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Through these EAPs, the Red Crescent Societies of both countries will be able to draw on the FbA by the DREF fund of the IFRC in Geneva whenever weather forecasts reach critical thresholds for approaching natural disasters. These funds can be used to carry out predefined short-term measures in affected communities. People are thus better protected: Families can bring their belongings to safety, protect their livestock and better cushion the harmful consequences of extreme weather conditions. In this way, extreme weather does not throw them back again and again in their economic and health development.

World Weather Attribution (WWA) is an international effort to analyse and communicate the possible influence of climate change on extreme weather events, such as storms, extreme rainfall, heatwaves, cold spells, and droughts.

Recognising society’s interest in reducing the human, economic, and environmental costs of weather-related disasters, WWA delivers timely and scientifically reliable information on how extreme weather may be affected by climate change.

Recent studies have quantified the impact of climate change on the likelihood and intensity of bushfires, heatwaves and storms.

Through extensive media engagement – including the Guardian, the Daily Mail, the Times, Scientific American, CBS, BBC and many more – WWA has helped to change the global conversation around climate change, influencing adaptation strategies and paving the way for new sustainability litigation. In 2020, climate change attribution was named one of MIT Tech Review’s top ten breakthrough technologies.

WWA is a partnership of:

• Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford (ECI)
• Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI)
• Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environment (LSCE)
• University of Princeton
• National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR)
• Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre (The Climate Centre).

Cool Streets is an initiative out of Sydney, Australia, to empower communities to cool the planet, one street at a time. Cool Streets combines scientific research and public engagement, working with local communities to implement effective street tree plantings that provide shade in heat-affected urban areas and reduce CO2 emissions.

As part of California’s Fourth Climate Change Assessment, Four Twenty Seven is working with project partners to develop a tool that will inform long-term planning efforts to communicate the urgency of and mitigate the public health impacts of increasing extreme heat events across the state.

HEATCOST will quantify health risks attributable to heat and air pollution (with a particular focus on air pollution from wildfires) in main world regions under selected climate scenarios and socioeconomic pathways.

The project capitalizes on the H2020 project Exhaustion.eu.

The researtch is co-designed with stakeholder partners engaged in development and implementation of adaptation measures. HEATCOST will increase synergies between teams across partner countries and stakeholder organizations, fostering a new climate and environmental health knowledge platform based on a transdisciplinary and end-user focused approach.

HEATCOST quantifies global current and future changes in cardiopulmonary (CPD) mortality and morbidity due to extreme heat and air pollution (including from wildfires) under selected climate scenarios, while assessing a diverse set of adaptation mechanisms and strategies, and estimates the associated costs. Extreme heat increases the rates of death (mortality) and can exacerbate a range of diseases (morbidity). In particular, heat increases mortality and morbidity for cardiovascular and respiratory diseases (CVD and RD), which together constitute cardiopulmonary diseases (CPD). The risk of wildland fires increases during periods of extreme heat and decreasing precipitation, and can cause intense air pollution. Synergistic effects of extreme heat and air pollution (O3 and PM_2.5) on CPD outcomes have been identified. Complex interactions act to exacerbate the effects of extreme events on CPD outcomes. The health risk varies by region, population vulnerability, the built environment and other factors. Populations at highest risk include older adults, children, socially isolated individuals, and individuals with chronic diseases. Health effects due to heat and air pollution is largely preventable to the extent that adaptation measures can be tailored to alleviate contextual and individual vulnerability factors for vulnerable populations.

To assess future health risks, HEATCOST will review the rich literature on the exposure-response relationships between health effects and non-optimum temperature, including for EU, USA, and China, and establish exposure projections for extreme heat and air pollution based on updated and advanced modelling and downscaling efforts. HEATCOST includes a diverse set of adaptation mechanisms, calculates the associated economic and social costs and identifies effective strategies for minimizing adverse impacts. The results will be disseminated to the general public and to decision- and policy-makers.

HEATCOST will address key knowledge gaps listed by the IPCC and USGCRP: published health risk projections do not adequately reflect the adaptation to a changing climate; there is a lack of knowledge and appropriate models regarding possible interactive effects of extreme heat and air pollution; and the fundamental gap between the approach of global models and observational data for quantitative projections of the costs associated with heat, air pollution and health risks.

The High Impact Weather project (HIWeather) is a ten-year activity within the WMO’s World Weather Research Programme. It serves to promote cooperative international research to achieve a dramatic increase in resilience to high impact weather, worldwide, through improving forecasts for timescales of minutes to two weeks and enhancing their communication and utility in social, economic and environmental applications.”

Working people are particularly vulnerable to environmental heat. We will study the complex threat heat exposures pose to human health, wellbeing and productivity in working populations in Singapore and other tropical countries (Vietnam and Cambodia), and to identify sustainable preventive policies and actions that can reduce these impacts.

The Climate and Health Program (CLIMA) of the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) is working to build a prototype of heat health early warning system for Europe. This unified pan-European service will be adapted to all European societies by using daily meteorological and mortality data to account for the regional differences in human vulnerability and societal adaptation to climate variability and change. The development of this epidemiological surveillance tool is aimed at contributing to a better monitoring and forecasting system of temperature-related health risks. The system will provide more realistic warnings, raising awareness and support public health management and decision making.

For over three decades, an epidemic of chronic kidney disease (CKD), not related to well-known risk factors like diabetes and hypertension, and thus named CKD of unknown origin (CKDu) has been detected in agricultural and other heavy labourers in Central America, especially sugarcane workers. CKDu is also increasingly observed in manual rural workers in other hot regions, such as Sri Lanka, India, and Egypt.

There are probably multiple risk factors for CKDu, as for most non-communicable diseases, but there is a growing body of evidence that labour practices, specifically strenuous work in heat without sufficient rest or hydration, is an important driver of the disease. Thus, this disease can be seen as having a direct link to climate change and is likely to become even more prevalent in the near future unless workplace heat stress is mitigated. As a response to this disease, members of the current project consortia have collectively implemented the Adelante Initiative at a large sugarcane mill in Nicaragua. Adelante is a scientific evaluation of workplace interventions that focus on adequate water and rest in shade together with improved ergonomics, aiming to prevent CKDu in workers while preserving productivity. The PREP program will build on the Adelante Initiative and will have three different themes:

I. To evaluate the immediate and long-term impact of a Water, Rest, and Shade intervention on workforce health (kidney health and heat related symptoms) and productivity in the sugar industry;

II. To examine the economic and social impacts on individuals, families, communities, the company and health systems affected by CKDu and whether workplace interventions to reduce heat stress and the risk for CKDu aids resilience, including mitigating migration pressures;

III. To examine the policies, or absence of policies (at multiple administrative scales) that have contributed to the CKDu disease and what policies are required to effectively address it in a future changing climate.

This program is an interdisciplinary effort that brings together researchers with expertise in occupational hygiene, medicine, health economics, plus social and political sciences. The research methods range from advanced physiological measurements, focus groups and interviews, document analysis, to semi-structured interviews and participatory workshops. Using this coordinated, interdisciplinary approach we will evaluate how occupational health and safety interventions affects worker’s health at an individual level as well as the social and economic effects in the local community, and company return-of-investment.

Together with workers, management, certifying institutions, national authorities, and consumers we will build toolkits and educational materials for those affected and those wishing to improve protection for workers in industrial agricultural and other manual outdoor work. Our findings will be broadly shared via scientific communications, workshops with worker/management, production of web-based material, films for the general public, and collaboration with media. PREP will enhance our knowledge on risk factors for CKDu in industrial agricultural workers in a hot climate, and produce evidence-based toolkits and other educational material for prevention of heat stress and its consequences, directed to the industry, governments and other stakeholders. By furthering our understanding of where and who are affected, while providing viable solutions, we can help governments and industry take a proactive and cost-effective approach to address CKDu and its associated challenges. There is a need to demonstrate that such an investment will be more economical than suffering the social and economic impact of doing nothing or inadequately attempting to treat an issue that is likely to get worse in a warming world.

The overarching goal of this project was to protect the livelihoods of low-income workers as climate change leads to increased temperatures in Da Nang city. Specifically, the project aspired to increase the resilience of vulnerable urban workers to heat stress and thereby contribute to the resilience of the city as a whole.

The long-term research goal is to identify viable passive housing adaptation technologies with proven health and environmental benefits to reduce the burden of heat stress in communities affected by heat in Africa. As a next step towards this goal, the project proposes to conduct a household-randomized controlled trial (RCT) in Nouna, Burkina Faso to: (i) establish the effect of the cool roof on the primary endpoint heart rate (as an indicator of physiological stress) and (ii) quantify the effects of the cool roof on a range of secondary endpoints, including indoor temperature, indoor humidity, cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, household energy consumption, and socioeconomic outcomes.

This project aims to design an air pollution and heatwave management toolkit, school environmental monitoring program and engage with targeted national and city level governmental and non-governmental actors to support its uptake in development planning. The project is coordinated by Taru Leading Edge and ICLEI South Asia, in partnership with CDKN, and was launched in India in July 2019.

NOAA, in a public-private partnership with CAPA Strartegies, LLC, runs annual community science Urban Heat Island mapping campaigns in cities across the United States. Each year, lea organizations in cities apply for core support funding for this activity. Residents of participating cities use low-cost in-situ sensors attached to their cars to drive transects and sample urban temperatures at a height of 2m. The in-situ data are combined with satellite data in a machine learning model to develop an estimate of the urban heat island intensity across the city. The outputs of the project are open source, and the outcomes of the project include community science engagement, education, and usable datasets showing the distribution of urban heat island intensity across the city.

Le projet VURCA étudie la vulnérabilité des villes à des épisodes futurs de canicules, afin de proposer des stratégies d’adaptation.

The UK Met Office’s Weather and Climate Information Services for Africa (WISER) programme’s mission is to make a step change in the quality, accessibility and use of weather and climate information services at all levels of decision making for sustainable development in Africa.

The Met Office has been commissioned by the UK government’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) to act as fund manager for the East Africa component of the programme, focussing on the Lake Victoria Basin and surrounding region (Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda). This component aims to improve the quality and relevance of weather and climate information and support its uptake and use.

Under the East Africa component five quick-start projects using WISER funding were commissioned in late 2015 and commenced work early in 2016. A further series of projects began in 2017. In the commissioning of new projects, applications will be invited to access WISER funding in line with the WISER strategy. Details of any open application rounds can be found on our WISER programme opportunities page.

For information on projects under the Policy & Enabling Environment Component (PEEC) please visit the ClimDev-Africa website.

The World Weather Research Programme (WWRP) is the WMO’s international programme for advancing and promoting research activities on weather, its prediction and its impact on society. The improvements in science and operational predictions are driven by international cooperation, and in turn international cooperation in weather science is a unique opportunity to drive sustainable development.

The Yale Programme on Climate Change Communication conducts scientific research on public climate change knowledge, attitudes, policy preferences, and behavior, and the underlying psychological, cultural, and political factors that influence them. They also engage the public in climate change science and solutions, in partnership with governments, media organizations, companies, and civil society, and with a daily, national radio program, Yale Climate Connections.

The World Urban Database and Access Portal Tools project is a community-based project to gather a census of cities around the world.

The overall aims of WUDAPT are to:

• use the Local Climate Zone (LCZ) classification framework as the starting point for characterizing cities in a consistent manner
• use Geo-Wiki to sample land cover and land use types across LCZs (e.g. impervious surfaces (buildings, roads, other), pervious surfaces, grassland, etc.)
• develop tools (online and mobile-based) to obtain other parameters such as building materials, building dimensions, canopy widths, etc.
• provide open access to this dataset so that researchers around the world can use the data for many different types of applications, from climate and weather modeling to energy balance studies
• provide basic tools in the portal to allows researchers to aggregate the data to a user-specified reference grid (resolution and starting location) and compare cities around the world.

For WUDAPT to work, we need to build a community of interested urban experts and interested researchers who will take active part by:

• using the training materials to classify your city into LCZs
• contributing your LCZ map to WUDAPT
• helping us to collect other parameters using the online and mobile-based tools that will be developed.

Electric vehicles (EVs) are a promising solution for sustainable transport. However, making EVs a sustainable solution depends on a variety of factors such as the carbon footprint of the electricity mix.

We will focus on two major emerging markets – China and India – to investigate the conditions under which EVs can provide co-benefits for air quality, health and climate change. The growth of EVs relies on curbing the use of coal power plants, building new infrastructure and shifting consumer preferences. We will help develop solutions for these challenges by evaluating the relative importance of country-specific factors such as subsidies, regulations around EVs and the price of electricity. We will design a series of scenarios to represent these key factors and use an integrated assessment modelling method combining emissions analysis, air quality modelling and health impact assessment.

Our findings could inform policy to unlock the air quality, health and climate co-benefits of EVs in China and India.

The main objective of ACASIS is to set-up a pre-operational heat wave warning system over West Africa tailored to health risks of the population living in this region. This is a demonstration project focused on Senegal and Burkina Faso where national weather services have already started developing products dedicated to weather/climate and health relationships, and where several health and demographic observatories have been operating for up to several decades.

This project will estimate air pollution (fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and ozone), heat waves, and days of high or low temperatures under present day conditions and in the future under climate change for two major Brazilian cities. The project will also develop estimates of how weather and air pollution impact mortality in Brazil.

The five-year ASSAR project (Adaptation at Scale in Semi-Arid Regions, 2014-2018) uses insights from multi-scale, interdisciplinary work to inform and transform climate adaptation policy and practice in ways that promote the long-term wellbeing of the most vulnerable and those with the least agency.

Working in 7 countries in the semi-arid regions of India, and East, Southern and West Africa, we focused our case studies on regionally-relevant, socio-ecological risks and dynamics relating to livelihoods, and resource access, use, and management.

CHAMNHA is led by a transdisciplinary team from 3 continents, spanning the natural, health and social sciences, and will address key knowledge gaps around heat and Maternal and Neonatal Health (MNH) in sub-Saharan Africa.

Abstract

The frequency and intensity of heat waves have increased in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and are set to escalate in the coming decades. Heatwaves present major health threats, especially for vulnerable population groups, such as those with limited socio-economic resources or compromised physiological ability to respond to heat stress. Pregnant women and neonates (<28 days after birth) have a unique set of health vulnerabilities, particularly in low- and lower-middle income countries (LLMICs), where pregnancy and childbirth are often highly precarious. Heat exposure complicates Maternal and Neonatal Health (MNH), increasing risks for maternal haemorrhage and sepsis, prematurity, low birth weight and neonatal dehydration. Few studies have assessed these impacts in sub-Saharan Africa, where maternal and neonatal deaths are frequent, facilities experience high indoor temperatures, health systems have low adaptive capacity and access to services is increasingly disrupted by climate events.

The proposed study (CHAMNHA) is led by a transdisciplinary team from 3 continents, spanning the natural, health and social sciences, and will address key knowledge gaps around heat and MNH in SSA in collaboration with stakeholders, employing qualitative and quantitative methods, implementation and evaluation science, and climate impact methods. The project is divided into three work packages (WP). WP1 will quantify impacts of heat exposure on MNH outcomes, using trial data, birth cohorts and other data sources from SSA, Norway and Sweden. We will characterize these impacts and identify sub-groups at high-risk. In WP2, qualitative research will document perceptions and local practices relating to heat exposure in pregnant women and neonates in Burkina Faso and Kenya. Then, in conjunction with pregnant women, male partners and health workers, we will co-design community- and facility-based interventions, such as improving preparedness for heat, e.g. through warning systems; changing behaviours and health worker practices to reduce heat impacts on MNH; training birth companions and traditional birth attendants on heat reduction during childbirth; and promoting breastfeeding and optimised hydration for women and neonates. WP3 will test the acceptability, feasibility and effectiveness of selected interventions using a randomized design (Kenya) and pre-post study design (Burkina Faso). In WP4, building on established collaborations with stakeholders, ministries of health and WHO, we will translate research findings into recommendations for improved MNH practice in the health sector, and national adaptation planning to reduce the current and future impacts of climate change on MNH

Using an interdisciplinary modelling approach, this project will quantify the air quality and health co-benefits of mitigation and adaptation policies in Ahmedabad, India in collaboration with the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Gujarat Energy Research and Management Institute, Public Health Foundation of India and the Natural Resources Defense Council. It will estimate the total electricity demand in 2030, considering climate change and demand for air conditioning. It will model and compare air quality associated with two climate change response strategies: shifting fossil fuel use to solar energy; and expanding cool roof/green landcover interventions. It will also use air quality estimates to calculate health co-benefits in 2030, relative to a 2018 baseline and a 2030 business-as-usual scenario.

In 2013, the city of Ahmedabad, in Gujarat State, India, adopted and started implementing the first Heat Action Plan in South Asia. Based on learning from the project’s first phase, and interest from other state and municipal governments in India, the next phase was building on this momentum to deepen and expand action on extreme heat.

The heat wave in 2003 caused approximately 7% more deaths. As a result, the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health developed an information campaign for the behaviour during heat waves which has been adopted by various cantonal health authorities.

Objectives

1) Assessment of preventive measures which have been recommended or implemented by various stakeholders (communities, cantons, confederacy, MeteoSuisse, international authorities) to reduce heat-related mortality.

2) Analysis of the effect of heat waves on mortality in Switzerland on the basis of empirical data on a national level and stratified by region. The hypothesis will be tested the effect of comparable heat episodes on mortality is reduced since 2003.

3) Evaluation of regional adopted measures on the heat-related excess mortality in single cantons/regions where preventive measures have already been implemented.

4) Identification of the meteorological indicator which best describes the heat effect on mortality and identification of the highest groups at risk.

5) Preparation and dissemination of epidemiological studies on the topic for interested stakeholders with newsletters and workshops.

Methods

In a first step an assessment of the adopted and recommended measures aiming to reduce heat-related mortality will be executed. In a second step, Swiss mortality data (1990-2012) from the Federal Office of Statistics will be linked with the corresponding regional meteorological data provided by MeteoSwiss. The heat-related excess mortality will be investigated using Poisson regression analysis. Furthermore, various meteorological indicators will be investigated for the health effect of heat episodes. An important part of the project addresses the knowledge transfer. During the project, new relevant epidemiological studies will be identified, summarized and evaluated regarding to the practice. Information is made available to the relevant agencies and stakeholders by means of a newsletter.

Expectations

The project will provide an overview of adaptation measures for the prevention of heat-related mortality. It will show which meteorological parameters have the greatest effect on mortality and which age groups are particularly affected. The projects will generate evidence whether an increased sensitivity to the issue and adopted measures in the recent years had an impact on the extent of heat-related mortality.

The EXHAUSTION project aims to quantify the changes in cardiopulmonary mortality and morbidity due to extreme heat and air pollution (including from wildfires) under selected climate scenarios.

EXHAUSTION will address key knowledge gaps as listed by IPCC, including the following:

• Published health risk projections do not properly account for adaptation.
• There is a lack of knowledge and appropriate models regarding possible interactive effects of extreme heat and air pollution.
• Quantitative projections of the costs associated with the health risks are suffering from a simplified modelling of the complex relationship between climatic and non-climatic factors, human health, and the socio-economic consequences.

EXHAUSTION will advance on these issues–adaptation, interactive effects, and socio-economic costs – and quantify the changes in cardiopulmonary disease under selected climate scenarios while including a diverse set of adaptation mechanisms and measures, calculate the associated costs, and identify effective interventions for minimizing adverse impacts. The EXHAUSTION consortium is multidisciplinary, encompassing specialists in climate and air quality modelling, cardiopulmonary medicine, epidemiology, health impact assessment, economics, and science communication. Moreover, the Consortium is pan-European, with participation of 14 partners from 10 countries in Europe and representing the territories subject of study in the project.

EXHAUSTION is a EU-funded research project led by CICERO Center for International Climate Research (Norway), and includes 13 other research institutions and partners: University of Oslo (Norway), Norwegian Institute of Public Health (Norway), Aarhus University (Denmark), Helmholtz Zentrum München (Germany), University of Porto (Portugal), National Meteorological Administration (Romania), National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (Greece), London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (UK), Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (Luxembourg), Department of Epidemiology of the Lazio Region Health Service in Roma (Italy), Finnish Meteorological Institute (Finland), InfoDesignLab AS (Norway), DRAXIS Environmental S.A. (Greece).

EXTREMA’s main objectives were to raise awareness, facilitate prevention and protect health from the adverse effects of climate change. EXTREMA was a DG ECHO funded project, 2018-2019, GA 783180.

The EXTREMA project led to EXTREMA Global – see more https://www.extrema-global.com/

The project focuses on heat waves in Hanoi and is the first FbF project to focus on extreme events in urban areas. In Hanoi the average daily temperatures have risen in recent years; past heatwaves have led to a 20.0% increase in hospital admissions for all causes and 45.9% for respiratory diseases. One main element of the project is the identification of early actions that can reduce these health impacts of heatwaves, with a special focus on groups that are particularly affected like the elderly. Research, consultation with experts and field assessments are currently under way.

An interdisciplinary research team will use a mortality database for urban residents in nine Latin American countries to examine the impact of climate change, particularly extreme heat events, on urban population mortality. They will also examine the modifying effect of green space and fine particulate matter on the association between heat events and mortality.

This project will take an interdisciplinary approach to quantify the health impact of changes to urban green infrastructure, and develop an environment and health economics tool, focusing on international cities, including London, Beijing and Nairobi.

The purpose of this study is to develop and test a set of interventions to reduce the impact of extreme heat on urban low-income populations.

The Horizon 2020 research project is dedicated to address the negative impact of increased workplace heat stress on the health and productivity of five strategic European industries: manufacturing, construction, transportation, tourism and agriculture.

LUCID is developing, testing and applying state-of-the-art methods for calculating local climate in the urban environment. The impact on the internal built environment, energy use and the consequences for health will then be explored. The implications for urban planning will be considered in detail.

This study is exploring how low- to moderate-cost interventions can alleviate the impact of high temperatures and humidity in ready-made garment factories in preparation for further climate change. It compares the use of green or white roofs and actively-managed fan-assisted cross-ventilation, compared to no interventions and air-conditioning. Climate-controlled chambers, computer-based modelling temperature monitoring, and worker interviews will be used to explore perceptions of discomfort caused by heat. Findings will help estimate when it will be necessary to invest in interventions and how effective they can be.

The Multi-City Multi-Country (MCC) network is an international collaboration of research teams working on a program aiming to produce epidemiological evidence on associations between weather and health. Interest on this topic has grown in the last few years among both researchers and the general public, due to recent events of extreme weather and alarming climate change scenarios, both linked with increased health risks.The research program benefits from the use of the largest dataset ever assembled for this purpose, including information from hundreds of locations within several countries. This allows standardized analyses on local data to address specific research questions on global weather-health associations, following a formalized yet flexible method of collaboration. The MCC network has developed during the years, through correspondence between the participants and additional meetings held at other scientific conferences.

Many greenhouse gas mitigation actions also benefit air quality and health but assessment of these co-benefits has been limited. Over the next several years, C40 Cities will be working with city governments to develop climate action plans. They will integrate a screening-level air quality model focusing on particulate matter into C40’s climate action planning tool, Pathways, for at least three pilot cities. They will test the tool to explore air quality and health co-benefits of climate action pathways. We will also assess the potential for quantifying additional health co-benefits, such as changes in ozone, nitrogen dioxide levels, physical activity, noise and green space. Data and tools will be publicly available to support additional research into links between climate and health. Their work will build a bridge between scientific evidence on co-benefits to the largest urban climate action planning effort worldwide. Pathways will create a platform to study more cities and enable long-term integration of health co-benefits into climate action planning in cities.

This project will study the complex threat heat exposures pose to human health, wellbeing and productivity in working populations in Singapore and other tropical countries, and to identify sustainable preventive policies and actions that can reduce these impacts. Working people are particularly vulnerable to environmental heat because of their added internal heat production from muscle work. Singapore’s equatorial location means working populations are already chronically exposed to hot conditions (WBGT > 25°C) which are considered detrimental to health and wellbeing. These conditions require people working or engaged in exercise outdoors to take frequent rest and cooling breaks to protect health, If workers cannot or do not take rest in relation to heat stress, serious health effects can occur, including heat stroke death. Such conditions also affect productivity, which is reduced by 15% of potential annual work hours in the sun and by 4% if working in the shade.

Singapore has begun to tackle these issues by supporting mitigation and adaptation to extreme heat associated with climate change and with the urban heat island effect through research focused on public health and urban design. However, heat-health is a complex socioenvironmental problem that transgresses institutional, sectoral and disciplinary boundaries of public and occupational health and the domains of workplace, public space and the home. As such, there is a need to complement these efforts through the provision of a programme focussed on occupational exposures and their knock-on effects to support the overall effectiveness of Singaporean investments in heat-health risk management. Exposed work occurs in outdoor settings, but semi-enclosed workspaces, such as sheds or roofed workshops, can also present very hot thermal environments where cooling systems are inefficient, air conditioning cannot be used for financial or other reasons, and/or additional heat sources are present. These conditions are typical of many industries, including construction, shipping and utilities, including oil and gas transport and storage.

There is also limited evidence available concerning occupational heat exposures, and the impact of age, body mass index, physical fitness, and sex (e.g. pregnancy) on these effects, or their broader effects, such as prolonged discomfort, and mental stress, familial relationships and special health concerns, such as fertility. Improved knowledge is essential for the development of effective prevention programs. The researchers will pursue a multi-disciplinary approach uniquely positioned to address direct occupational heat exposures and impacts on health and productivity, but also the broader health and wellbeing implications that have yet to be comprehensively addressed in chronically heat-exposed countries such as Singapore. For example, physical fitness is one of the best ways of increasing heat tolerance as well as overall health. Ironically, the high heat levels in Singapore do not only discourage engagement in physical exercise, but can also be a direct health threat for people involved in sports and exercise. We will also review and test methods for analysing the most extreme effects of heat, including heat related mortality.

By following impacts on workers as well as workplaces, the study will trace how heat-health impacts emerge through exposure and exertion as a result of behaviours shaped by the climatic, urban, occupational and social environments they traverse every day. Such integrated analysis is required in order to develop policy responses that take into account the spatial and social situation of why heat-health impacts occur and how they can be managed as part of the everyday lives of chronically exposed populations. This also allows for the identification, analysis and management of ‘knock-on’ effects of occupational heat exposures on recreational and domestic life (and vice versa), including psychosocial and physiological impacts on exercise behaviours and fitness, family relationships, mental health and wellbeing and fertility rates. As our focus is on heat effects on working people, one secondary outcome of excessive heat exposure will be economic losses at individual, enterprise, community and national level due to a reduction of labour productivity due to heat. Our analysis will compare such economic impacts of heat to the costs of potential methods for climate change mitigation in selected countries. This will provide new estimates of the value of different alternatives in future climate change policy development.