Primer for Cool Cities: Reducing excessive urban heat with a focus on passive measures

Organization: International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank

Year: 2020

Primer for Cool Cities: Reducing excessive urban heat with a focus on passive measures

Urban cooling solutions can be deployed in the short term to help mitigate the risk of rising urban air
temperatures. This primer and its appendix, Cool City Case Studies: Reducing Urban Heat, provide
practical, actionable guidance and examples for implementers, policy makers, and planners tasked with
mitigating urban heat impacts. The report covers:

  • the challenges of rising temperatures for cities, and for urban design more broadly
  • actions and solutions that can be deployed at the building, community, and city levels to reduce
    excess heat and promote thermal comfort
  • the benefits of an integrated deployment of urban cooling solutions at scale
  • a framework for an inclusive process to develop urban cooling strategies
  • the benefits of heat action plans to protect residents from periods of extreme temperatures
  • examples, results, and recommendations from urban cooling policies and actions implemented
    around the world.