As summers become hotter, Boston moves to implement its heat resilience plans

For much of the country, this past June was hot — sometimes dangerously hot. In Boston, record-setting temperatures and the heightened risk of heatstroke prompted the city to declare a heat emergency, end school days early and open cooling centers. As heat waves become more common in the region, city officials have created a plan to prepare our infrastructure and communities for the hotter days ahead. GBH’s All Things Considered host Arun Rath discussed Boston’s heat resilience plan with Zoe Davis, a climate resilience project manager with Boston’s Environment Department, and Matt Kearney, the deputy chief of the Office of Emergency Management. What follows is a lightly edited transcript.

Arun Rath: To start off, we’re already seeing the effects of climate change in the city, right? It’s not our imagination. It feels that summers have been getting much, much hotter.

Zoe Davis: That is definitely true. In the city of Boston we have historically had about ten days over 90 degrees in Boston’s more recent history. But due to the impacts of climate change, we are expecting to see more days over a 90-degree threshold and even more days of chronic heat, which are days over 80 degrees.

Rath: In terms of the city specifically, we hear this term that Boston is a “heat island.” Can you talk about what that means and how different communities in the city might experience heat waves differently?

Davis: So, relative to the state of Massachusetts, the Greater Boston area and Boston itself is considered to be a heat island because it’s hotter than the surrounding area. So we do say that the city of Boston is itself a heat island, but within the city there are these temperature hotspots: areas that are within the city that are hotter than others. So some of these areas are typically areas of higher building density, areas where there’s expansive roadway or dark hardscape. These often follow our transportation corridors, areas where there’s large buildings. Then areas that are cooler in the city, by contrast, are parks, typically, and also along the coastline edge and areas that are near bodies of water.

Rath: Matt, how is the city preparing for this? Something that that goes beyond what we’re used to preparing for.

Matt Kearney: Yeah, it takes a whole city approach. So on the Emergency Management side, our work is looking at the short-term response, [to] this heat that’s occurring earlier in the year and later in the year. I know we declared a heat emergency in September last year, which is uncommon. So it’s on us to work with the Environment Department, Boston Planning Development Agency and all the other stakeholders that are taking these long-term projections, and getting a sense of where those resources are needed now in the city. So we’re taking a look at these heat islands that we know are impacting certain neighborhoods, ensuring that they have the adequate cooling resources, as well as other resources that we can make available to those residents because their neighborhoods are hotter than other areas within the city.

Rath: Other sorts of adaptations we’ve been making to climate change from energy conservation to cleaner forms of energy have obvious other benefits. Aside from the direct ones we’re talking about when we’re upgrading infrastructure for heat resilience, are there other additional side benefits to doing that as well?

Davis: Yes. We look at co-benefits of integrating heat resilience broadly. So for example, when we’re thinking about integrating heat resiliency to our roadway infrastructure, there are opportunities to also integrate green infrastructure, which then can have a positive impact on how we are managing stormwater. There’s also elements in this example of making sure to integrate elements around safety, wayfinding and accessibility. I think, similarly, when we’re thinking about improvements to our buildings — as you had mentioned, integrating energy efficient elements into our buildings, as well as coordinating that with decarbonization efforts — is a part of a holistic approach to being climate-resilient, which includes heat resilience as well.