New York City Adapts to Deal with Projected Increase of Heat Waves

New York City is taking steps to mitigate current heat conditions and improve resiliency to future heat conditions. The city is increasing the use of cooling centers and promoting green infrastructure projects like urban foresting and green roofs to mitigate the urban heat island effect. The city is focusing outreach efforts to vulnerable populations, to increase awareness of heat mitigation resources and actions. The NYC Cool Roofs program enlists over 1,000 volunteers and has “cooled and coated” 2,077,537 square feet of rooftop. The city also enacted the Million Trees initiative to plant 1 million trees by 2017.