Urban Heat Resilience
PAS QuickNotes 95
By Ladd Keith, Sara Meerow
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Heat is the deadliest weather-related hazard in the United States, posing a growing and inequitable threat to human health, infrastructure, and economic and ecological systems. Communities are getting hotter due to climate change and the urban heat island (UHI) effect. Cities across the country must prepare for unprecedented heat and address systemic inequities in heat risk.
Planners considering urban heat resilience should work to help their communities equitably prepare for and adapt to both chronic and acute heat risk through heat mitigation and management. Heat mitigation includes design and planning strategies that aim to reduce the built environment’s contribution to urban heat, whereas heat management strategies prepare for and respond to heat.
This edition of PAS QuickNotes explains national trends in extreme heat and describes how planners can enhance urban heat resilience for their communities through planning and implementing heat mitigation and management strategies.
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About the Authors
Ladd Keith
Ladd Keith, PhD, is an associate professor in the School of Landscape Architecture and Planning, director of the Heat Resilience Initiative, associate research professor at the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy, and distinguished scholar at the University of Arizona. His transdisciplinary research focuses on heat planning, policy, and governance to help increase the heat resilience of communities, regions, and nations across the world.
Sara Meerow
Sara Meerow, PhD, is currently an associate professor in the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning at Arizona State University and will be transitioning in Fall 2026 to the University of Colorado Boulder. Her work focuses on urban resilience, climate change adaptation governance with a focus on heat and flooding, and green infrastructure planning.