Thermally resilient communities: creating a socio-technical collaborative response to extreme temperatures
Extreme temperatures claim more lives than any other weather-related event, posing escalating socio-technical and governance challenges that few urban communities have addressed in a systematic, coordinated and comprehensive way. Scholars have only recently begun to investigate the granular scales a...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Ubiquity Press
2020-06-01
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| Series: | Buildings & Cities |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://journal-buildingscities.org/articles/15 |
| _version_ | 1797760035716071424 |
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| author | Zoe Hamstead Paul Coseo Saud AlKhaled Emmanuel Frimpong Boamah David M. Hondula Ariane Middel Nicholas Rajkovich |
| author_facet | Zoe Hamstead Paul Coseo Saud AlKhaled Emmanuel Frimpong Boamah David M. Hondula Ariane Middel Nicholas Rajkovich |
| author_sort | Zoe Hamstead |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Extreme temperatures claim more lives than any other weather-related event, posing escalating socio-technical and governance challenges that few urban communities have addressed in a systematic, coordinated and comprehensive way. Scholars have only recently begun to investigate the granular scales at which distributions of thermal risk are produced, people’s individual subjective thermal experiences and environmental justice dimensions of the hazard. Advances in research pave the way for concomitant improvements in management and policies, but bridges are needed to connect the thermal vulnerability knowledge base with place-based protective practices that are climatically, politically and culturally appropriate. The research presented in this paper uses actor–network theory (ANT) to describe the planning phase framework of a socio-technical collaborative for managing thermal extremes. The Thermally Resilient Communities Collaborative (TRCC) is a framework for planning and test-bed design phases of a thermal management system. Drawing lessons from two case studies, the framework examines how socio-cognitive spaces for collaboration change with technical and policy disruptions, and provides a way to design experiments that test how technical and governance interventions can enable collective action around urban thermal management. 'Practice relevance' Thermal extremes claim more lives than all other weather events and pose an escalating socio-technical challenge. Often the problem is exacerbated by lack of clarity about organizational responsibilities and coordination between local governmental departments or agencies. The TRCC framework can be used to understand current practices, identify data gaps and create opportunities to engage in cross-sectoral management. This approach engages actors in identifying built environments and societal practices that create hazardous indoor and outdoor thermal conditions, develops effective ways to convey microclimate information and peoples’ subjective thermal experiences to responders and prevention planners, and elevates experiences of marginalized communities. The TRCC describes how governance networks are harnessed to solve collective action problems by integrating new data, technology, and governance capacities. Two case studies indicate how this process was used to create capacities to protect vulnerable people from the impacts of extreme temperatures in two US cities: Tempe, Arizona, and Buffalo, New York. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-12T18:52:59Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-d61ed87eef834776bff60db8c930f9f4 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2632-6655 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-12T18:52:59Z |
| publishDate | 2020-06-01 |
| publisher | Ubiquity Press |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Buildings & Cities |
| spelling | doaj.art-d61ed87eef834776bff60db8c930f9f42023-08-02T07:11:24ZengUbiquity PressBuildings & Cities2632-66552020-06-011110.5334/bc.1515Thermally resilient communities: creating a socio-technical collaborative response to extreme temperaturesZoe Hamstead0Paul Coseo1Saud AlKhaled2Emmanuel Frimpong Boamah3David M. Hondula4Ariane Middel5Nicholas Rajkovich6Department of Urban and Regional Planning, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York Buffalo, NYThe Design School, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZCollege of Architecture, Kuwait University, AdailiyaDepartment of Urban and Regional Planning, Community for Global Health Equity, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, NYSchool of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZSchool of Arts, Media and Engineering, School of Computing, Informatics, and Decision Systems Engineering, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZDepartment of Architecture, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York Buffalo, New YorkExtreme temperatures claim more lives than any other weather-related event, posing escalating socio-technical and governance challenges that few urban communities have addressed in a systematic, coordinated and comprehensive way. Scholars have only recently begun to investigate the granular scales at which distributions of thermal risk are produced, people’s individual subjective thermal experiences and environmental justice dimensions of the hazard. Advances in research pave the way for concomitant improvements in management and policies, but bridges are needed to connect the thermal vulnerability knowledge base with place-based protective practices that are climatically, politically and culturally appropriate. The research presented in this paper uses actor–network theory (ANT) to describe the planning phase framework of a socio-technical collaborative for managing thermal extremes. The Thermally Resilient Communities Collaborative (TRCC) is a framework for planning and test-bed design phases of a thermal management system. Drawing lessons from two case studies, the framework examines how socio-cognitive spaces for collaboration change with technical and policy disruptions, and provides a way to design experiments that test how technical and governance interventions can enable collective action around urban thermal management. 'Practice relevance' Thermal extremes claim more lives than all other weather events and pose an escalating socio-technical challenge. Often the problem is exacerbated by lack of clarity about organizational responsibilities and coordination between local governmental departments or agencies. The TRCC framework can be used to understand current practices, identify data gaps and create opportunities to engage in cross-sectoral management. This approach engages actors in identifying built environments and societal practices that create hazardous indoor and outdoor thermal conditions, develops effective ways to convey microclimate information and peoples’ subjective thermal experiences to responders and prevention planners, and elevates experiences of marginalized communities. The TRCC describes how governance networks are harnessed to solve collective action problems by integrating new data, technology, and governance capacities. Two case studies indicate how this process was used to create capacities to protect vulnerable people from the impacts of extreme temperatures in two US cities: Tempe, Arizona, and Buffalo, New York.https://journal-buildingscities.org/articles/15citiesclimate justicecold vulnerabilitycollaborative governanceequityhazard planningheat vulnerabilitypublic healthresiliencethermal conditions |
| spellingShingle | Zoe Hamstead Paul Coseo Saud AlKhaled Emmanuel Frimpong Boamah David M. Hondula Ariane Middel Nicholas Rajkovich Thermally resilient communities: creating a socio-technical collaborative response to extreme temperatures Buildings & Cities cities climate justice cold vulnerability collaborative governance equity hazard planning heat vulnerability public health resilience thermal conditions |
| title | Thermally resilient communities: creating a socio-technical collaborative response to extreme temperatures |
| title_full | Thermally resilient communities: creating a socio-technical collaborative response to extreme temperatures |
| title_fullStr | Thermally resilient communities: creating a socio-technical collaborative response to extreme temperatures |
| title_full_unstemmed | Thermally resilient communities: creating a socio-technical collaborative response to extreme temperatures |
| title_short | Thermally resilient communities: creating a socio-technical collaborative response to extreme temperatures |
| title_sort | thermally resilient communities creating a socio technical collaborative response to extreme temperatures |
| topic | cities climate justice cold vulnerability collaborative governance equity hazard planning heat vulnerability public health resilience thermal conditions |
| url | https://journal-buildingscities.org/articles/15 |
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