Cities to receive heat resilience grants

Ten successful US cities will receive US$10,000 to support the development of their own Heat Resilience Roadmap from the Center for Heat Resilient Communities (CHRC).

Technical assistance will also be provided to help the winners determine and communicate the impacts of extreme heat on their communities, assess their capacity to respond, and design a locally tailored blueprint for heat resilience.

“Communities across the country are taking steps to prepare for the impact of extreme heat on the health and well-being of people, the economy and infrastructure,” said Rick Spinrad, Administrator, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “The Center for Heat Resilient Communities continues to provide important resources to strengthen these efforts and develop a knowledge-sharing network for communities to work together to become more resilient to extreme heat.”

Each city will create strategies focusing on planning, funding and decision-making to prepare for and respond to extreme heat events. The strategies will centre on protecting residents from heat-related deaths and infrastructure damage, among other heat related impacts.

Successful applicants will be those that include engagement with community-based institutions and demonstrate a commitment to collaborating with community groups to reduce impacts on people who are most at risk.

They must highlight a capacity to work collaboratively across departmental boundaries and explain how participation with the CHRC fits into the communities’ existing and planned efforts.

The CHRC, based at the University of California, Los Angeles Luskin Center for Innovation supports communities to create strategies for local heat mitigation and management and using decision-support tools created by teams of research experts and over 50 multi-sector partners from around the world.

“Our centre builds on years of progress in dealing with heat impacts to provide communities with the targeted resources and guidance needed to identify resilience strategies tailored to each area’s local assets and challenges,” said Kelly Turner, principal investigator, CHRC. “We’ll also be able to highlight how the experiences and local knowledge of diverse communities can help shape federal responses on heat.”

Applications are now open and close on 24 January.

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