SFU researcher urges local municipalities to plan for future extreme heat events

With climate change expected to cause hotter summers and more extreme heat events, it’s past time for cities to think about how they incorporate extreme heat preparedness into urban planning, according to research from SFU.

“How do we make sure that our communities are actually going to be better off in 5, 10, 20 years from now? Because we’re at the point now where we know we’re going to have extreme heat events again,” said Andréanne Doyon, an associate professor at SFU’s school of resource and environmental management.

She’s one of the authors of the recent SFU study that looks at how 27 cities in Metro Vancouver  and the Fraser Valley are prepared, or not, for future heat events. She wanted to understand what local governments were doing — and she found many need to be doing more. 

“It’s not something we have an experience of [in the Lower Mainland],” she said. “How do we plan for something we’ve never planned for before?”

Doyon decided to embark on this research in the summer of 2021 after getting numerous media requests on heat waves, cities and climate change. It was the summer that B.C. experienced a fatal heat dome with record breaking temperatures that took 619 lives — including 10 in Maple Ridge.

“And I just kept thinking to myself, ‘We need local research on this topic,’” said Doyon.

“Heat waves and extreme heat events are not something that’s particularly common to the Lower Mainland or the B.C. South Coast. And yet, here we were. We experienced this really extreme event that had a lot of really negative impacts and fatalities,” she said.

Doyon had previously lived in Australia, where it was common to think about how to plan for heat as an extreme hazard. But what she observed locally was different: in 2021 and during heat waves in the subsequent two summers, municipal responses had been short term and  public health focused — things like cooling centres and public education campaigns. The long term, urban planning component was missing. 

 “We just need to be doing both,” she said.

How to plan for heat?

While affected by the 2021 heat dome, Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows weren’t the hardest hit in the region when compared to other cities like Vancouver or Surrey. 

But as these cities grow, how they choose to do so will determine the severity of future heat events. 

Typically, as cities densify and expand, it correlates with declining green space — something that is important to help keep places cooler.

Loss of this green space can lead to the urban heat island effect, which is when hard surfaces like roads and buildings absorb and trap the heat, Doyon explained.

To lessen the severity of extreme heat, cities can ensure they protect tree cover canopy, include green spaces and parks, and have planning tools like tree protection bylaws. They can also consider the types of building materials, the colour of buildings, the amount of pavement, and even if buildings are oriented to the sun or not.  

“We know we’re going to grow. So let’s grow knowing that’s going to get hotter, right?” Doyon said.

Where do Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows stand?

“Maple Ridge comes out a little ahead of Pitt Meadows,” said Doyon. She said she thinks it is because Maple Ridge is a more established municipality and has had people try to champion initiatives for a longer period of time.

It has a number of environmental initiatives, like tree cover canopy and ecosystem services, as well as planning tools to ensure heat is considered in developments.

Pitt Meadows, on the other hand, is less prepared. “Pitt Meadows isn’t currently employing any strategies to actually regulate and enforce ways for communities or new developments to actually reduce the impacts of heat,” said Doyon.

The consequences of not taking action can be grave.

“The boldest thing I can say is that more people will die,” said Doyon.

“Heat needs to be mainstreamed as an urban hazard. We have to think about it as something that we actually think of and plan for all year round.”