The second half of the final day included an excursion to the selected pilot area in Aswan (East District ‘Elsail Elgadid’), and good practice examples of public spaces (Feryal park, the corniche, the market and the train station plaza) in which elements for improving outdoor thermal comfort were installed.

Results: Piloted solution options

Here is an overview of the pilots and the results shared by the participants:

Outdoor temperatures were measured in a selected number of schools. Based on this data, planting of shade-providing fruit trees along with conducting awareness raising sessions for the students and staff in the targeted schools. Students and staff were trained to assist in thermal data collection via the temperature sensors in school yards where trees were planted using sensors provided by the World Resources Institute.  Several sessions were held with students, school staff and environmental officers focusing on awareness raising on the phenomenon of urban heat islands and the importance of planting trees to improve the outdoor thermal comfort. Nairobi is also planning to embed a real-time heat map in its website that will be publicly accessible. Besides the sense of ownership created among the schools’ students and staff, assigning the responsibility of regular maintenance to the environmental officers ensures the sustainability of this pilot. Plant shoots and seedlings were acquired via the municipal nursery which helped in reducing costs and ensuring the selection of native species that are drought-resistant. Further financial allocations are secured only upon incorporating the project in the County’s Integrated Development Plan (CIDP).

The Urban Development Fund partnered up with Aswan governorate to channel its institutional knowledge while putting together fragmented parts that will form the base for an Integrated Heat Action Framework in Aswan. The aim was to 1) establish a core working group with the most relevant departments to be involved in the process of developing a heat action plan, and 2) develop the general framework and select a zone for piloting. International experiences showcased and discussed as part of the deep dive were adapted to serve in the local context. Capitalizing on the local native knowledge in Aswan on climate-responsive design and construction methods, the local building codes will be reviewed and modified. The general framework includes measures for 1) adaptation planning and implementation, 2) preparedness, communication, and workers’ safety, 3) built environment, infrastructure, and managed spaces, and 4) ecosystem-based adaptation. Voting for area prioritization and selection was conducted and resulted in choosing “Elsail Elgadida” as a pilot area. Initial needs assessment meetings with local residents revealed a myriad of urban challenges, among which is the lack of safe public spaces. Accordingly, it was suggested to designate one of the districts numerous wide streets to this purpose by converting it into a pedestrian-only area and rehabilitating it with tree planting, shading elements and urban furniture. Local residents expressed their willingness to collaborate by watering the planted trees.

The implemented pilot aimed at raising awareness among stakeholders and citizen on urban heat islands and its effect as well as to mapping urban heat island hotspots in the city. Defining the message that needs to be communicated to different target groups was a challenging task: The risk of exposure to urban heat and its impacts on human wellbeing was the message conveyed to the laypersons and the general public. Meanwhile, the impact of uncontrolled urbanisation on exacerbating urban heat remains a major debate that needs to be addressed with the technical staff in the planning department. Urban forestry department, as well as the education and health departments joined forces to raise awareness in schools on the phenomenon of urban heat. Since 2023, climate change has indeed gained recognition in the local administration, therefore, the responsible staff were enabled to spearhead the topic and prioritise interventions. Nevertheless, it’s still being dealt with as a separate issue without sufficient integration in local development plans. To sustain the pilot’s results, it is necessary to incorporate its measures into the county integrated development plan (CIDP) which well be finalized in 2027, and to select localized solutions that  can be embraced by the community.

Heidelberg is planning to create a climatological database for all public spaces and outdoor areas. The city is also planning to develop up to three examples of best practice examples for urban heat mitigation in public spaces. These examples will be presented to the city council as a basis for future urban planning activities. The examples include small parks known as “pocket parks”. Main key learnings from implementing the pilot are: 1) seeking best fit local examples rather than ‘general’ best practice, 2) speaking the ‘language’ of your target audience for effective communication and building consensus, 3) compiling evidence to gain approval and enable upscaling, and 4) discussing and resolving issues related to delineation of roles and overlapping responsibilities.

Despite the similarities in the challenges faced by the participants in their local contexts, their approach to overcoming these issues varied. Being it weak horizontal communication and integration of the topic of urban heat in municipal plans, or risks arising for change in the political leadership affecting the funding, the participants discovered innovative methods to bypass the bottlenecks that impeded the implementation of their pilots. According to some of their testimonies, belonging to this group of local experts empowered them to taking actions aimed at achieving the goal of mitigation of urban heat risks.  Their next step is to optimize the pilots and plan for their upscaling until June 2025.

Presentations

All presented materials can be found on Connective Cities' Community Platform via this link [only for registered members].