Cool Cities: Counteracting Potential Climate Change and its Health Impacts

Abstract

Cool cities can produce a range of multi-scale, multi-dimensional impacts on the atmospheric environment. One area of increasing interest is the potentially beneficial impacts of cool cities in reducing heat stress and improving air quality health during hot weather and heat events. While the overriding effects of cool cities are beneficial in terms of thermal environment, cooling-energy use, air pollutant emissions, atmospheric chemistry, and air quality, some inadvertent effects can also arise. The goal of this paper is to present and compare the magnitudes of local heat and air quality effects induced by (1) climate change, (2) urban heat islands, and (3) cool cities. From the review of past and more recent findings, this paper concludes that cool cities have the potential to offset the negative local health impacts of climate change and/or their exacerbation by urban areas. To achieve these benefits, the measures must be tailored to region-specific characteristics and needs.