Heat Mitigation

The Center for Heat Resilient Communities supports communities in determining the best locally-tailored strategies to advance heat resilience that are “shovel-ready” for investment. This first-of-its-kind opportunity will directly fund and support communities and tribal entities across the U.S. and internationally utilizing novel and complementary decision support tools to create a roadmap for equitable community heat resilience. The Center brings together teams of experts and over 50 cross-sector partners including scholar specialists, chief heat and resilience officers, municipal climate and sustainability networks, national and international advocacy groups, private climate services providers, and more.

Distinct from mapping-focused federal programs, the Center will help turn data into action by aligning local goals and strategies with the resources needed for action. As a convening space between local communities innovating new ways to address heat impacts and national governmental and non-governmental policymakers and funders, center outputs are designed to both position communities to be highly competitive for state, federal, and philanthropic funding AND prepare policymakers and funders to be responsive to local needs. The Center shares the Federal Government’s vision for a “Nation of Heat Resilient Communities” and will work with communities across the nation to ensure that the tools necessary to become heat resilient — protecting people’s health and well-being where they live, learn, work, and play — are available for all.

To fulfill this vision, the central objectives of the Center are to:

Develop a comprehensive Heat Resilient Communities Workbook

Enable the development of locally tailored heat-action blueprints in at least 30 communities in the U.S. and beyond

Recommend actionable strategies for NOAA, NIHHIS, and federal partners to prioritize and coordinate investments in communities.

Principal investigators for the project include:

Dr. V. Kelly Turner, Associate Director, UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, University of California, Los Angeles (Lead Principal Investigator)

Dr. Ladd Keith, Assistant Professor of Planning and Sustainable Built Environments, University of Arizona (Principal Investigator)

Dr. Sara Meerow, Associate Professor in the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning, Arizona State University (Principal Investigator)

The collection of “The Center for Heat Resilient Communities” information is authorized under the OMB Control Number 0648-0828 included in the Paperwork Reduction Act and Privacy Act statements.

Visit this page and subscribe to the Heat Beat Newsletter for updates on the Center and the application. Questions can be sent to heat@ucla.edu and nihhis@noaa.gov.

The Center for Collaborative Heat Monitoring will support community science observations and data collection on extreme heat so communities can observe, monitor and evaluate factors influencing heat risk at a local scale. The center will be based at the Museum of Life and Science in Durham, N.C. with additional technical support from CAPA Strategies, Utah State University, and AQUEHS Corp. The center will also include three additional geographically dispersed sites, each serving a different region of the U.S. This will enable work to engage regional communities and connect with existing networks for public education and engagement. In addition to the Museum of Life and Science, these hubs include the Arizona Science Center, the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry and the Museum of Science in Boston. The center will build on eight years of NIHHIS efforts to map urban heat islands in over 80 U.S. and international communities.

The goals of the Center for Collaborative Heat Monitoring include:

A novel applied participatory action research approach to equitably support communities in co-creating new knowledge about extreme heat
Delivery and integration of decision-support data, information, and knowledge through comprehensive models to quantitatively evaluate heat distribution and exposure across heat-imperiled communities to community members, policymakers, and the Center for Heat Resilient Communities
Supporting communities by enhancing expertise, agency, and self-determination to make decisions on how to prepare for and mitigate heat
Increasing literacy and community support for ongoing on-the-ground work about the hazards posed by extreme heat and climate change to meaningfully reduce the amount of heat mortality in the U.S.
It is important to note that the Center for Collaborative Monitoring will be accepting applications from all types of U.S. communities- not just urban communities. Rural communities, Tribal Nations, U.S. territories, and states that have not previously undergone heat mapping are especially encouraged to apply.

Principal investigators for the project include:

Mr. Max Cawley, Director of Climate Research and Engagement, North Carolina Museum of Life and Science (Lead Principal Investigator)

Dr. David Sittenfeld, Director of the Center for the Environment, Museum of Science, Boston (Principal Investigator)

Dr. Vivek Shandas, Founder and Advisor, Climate Adaptation Planning and Analytics (CAPA) Strategies (Principal Investigator)

Dr. Wei Zhang, Assistant Professor of Climate Science, Utah State University (Principal Investigator)

Dr. Daniel Mendoza, Founder and CEO, AQUEHS, Corp (Principal Investigator)

Questions regarding the application can be sent to info@collaborativeheatmonitoring.org and nihhis@noaa.gov.

The Western Integrated Pest Management Center (“The Center”) engages a broad diversity of stakeholders in the West to identify strategic directions and set priorities for integrated pest management (IPM) research, education, and extension for pest management in all settings. Through these activities the Center promotes the USDA Research, Education, and Economics Action Plan goals of effective, affordable, and environmentally sound integrated pest management practices and improved response to emerging or reemerging pests of high consequence. The Center supports the National Roadmap for Integrated Pest Management (http://bit.ly/IPMRoadMap)

The Center works to reduce the risks that pests and pest-management practices pose to people, the environment and the economy of the American West by supporting the development and adoption of smart, safe and sustainable pest management. Our vision is a healthier West with fewer pests.

This RFA covers Planning Documents and Economic Analysis projects. This includes the development of Pest Management Strategic Plans, Integrated Pest Management Plans, Pest Management Prioritysetting for First Nation Food Sovereignty Initiatives, or similar planning documents, and Economic Analysis of IPM Systems.

Pest Management Strategic Plans (PMSPs) are developed with a group of producers and other stakeholders to identify the pest management needs and priorities of a particular commodity, industry, system, site or setting. The plans document current pest management practices and those under research and demonstration trial development. The plans also indicate priorities for research to fill knowledge gaps, regulatory changes, and education or training programs to support adoption of integrated pest management practices.

There are two current models for producing PMSPs, and either is acceptable.
• Guidelines for producing a traditional PMSP can be found on the National IPM Database web site at https://ipmdata.ipmcenters.org/pmsp_workshopguidelines.pdf
• Guidelines for producing an Integrated Pest Management Strategic Plan, an approach pioneered by researchers at Oregon State University, can be found at https://catalog.extension.oregonstate.edu/em9238

Pest Management Priority-setting for First Nation Food Sovereignty Initiatives may query producers, pest management professionals, IPM practitioners or other pest management stakeholders to gather information about the current pest management methods and challenges in a particular commodity, system, site or setting.

The Economic Analysis of IPM Systems assessment focuses on the economic impacts associated with IPM practices in commodity, industry, system, sites or settings. As an example, the Crop Pest-Loss and Impact Assessment Signature Program tracks the economic impacts associated with IPM implementation. For more information on Signature Programs, see the Center Projects section of the westernipm.org website. Additional recent examples include the economic analysis of the IR-4 program (available at www.ir4project.org/outreach/), the economic value of screening grapevines for viruses (available at doi: 10.5344/ajev.2020.19047) the University of California IPM program (2016 ARE Update University of California Giannini Foundation of Agricultural Economics).

Hispanic Access Foundation is committed to working in partnership to increase equitable access to urban tree canopy while stimulating community engagement and decision-making in local urban forestry and ultimately heightening our resilience to and mitigating climate change.

Through funding from the Inflation Reduction Act (Funding Opportunity #: USDA-FS-2023-UCF-IRA-01) the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) is making historic investments in boosting the nation’s tree cover in urban, suburban and rural communities nationwide. We are honored to partner with the USFS to become a national pass-through partner for the “Nuestros Bosques IRA Initiative” promoting Justice40, Ten-Year Urban Forestry Action Plan, State Forest Action Plans, congressional, and America the Beautiful priorities. In alignment with the Forest Service and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), 80 percent of the funding will flow directly to disadvantaged communities.

Urban canopy provides enormous benefits, from reducing the urban heat island effect and lowering energy bills, to absorbing carbon dioxide and pollutants, resulting in shortening hospital stays, decreasing asthma rates in surrounding neighborhoods, and lowering stress, noise, and damage from wind and water. Planting trees along streets and in parks to increase the urban tree canopy can remove millions of tons of carbon dioxide a year from the atmosphere, helping to improve our climate.