On the hottest days of the year, the temperature in Boulder is experienced differently depending on where you live, the resources you have available, or the community you are a part of.  

Over the past three years, the City’s Nature-based Solutions team set out to understand why and who it affected by high temperatures the most. In partnering with leading researchers, they developed city-wide extreme heat models capable of mapping temperature patterns block by block. But the numbers alone don’t tell the whole story.

The team layered in social data, identifying where elders, children, and residents with insufficient protection are concentrated. The results revealed where high exposure and high social risk overlap.

The integration of climate science, social data, and ecological analysis now guides local action. The city can prioritize urban forestry and natural infrastructure investments in the places that need them most by expanding shade and protecting the people most vulnerable to the intensifying heat of a changing climate.