Confronting Water Use and Heat Exposure in Urban Sustainability 

Editors’ Highlights are summaries of recent papers by AGU’s journal editors.

Journal: AGU Advances

Cities in warmer climate zones have experienced extreme heat and unbearable drought conditions due to climate change. New green infrastructure can ameliorate urban heat but increase water use. Tackling trade-offs between heat mitigation and water conservation have consistently been challenging issues for such cities. Zhu et al. [2023] formulates an operational framework by replacing unmanaged soil with new green spaces to maximize the co-benefits of urban cooling effects and water use conservation. The authors identified key areas that need new green spaces by considering factors of environmental justice. Placing newer vegetation in areas that have been experiencing harsh environmental conditions (e.g., neighborhoods facing extreme heat and drought) can achieve the highest level of sustainable urban development. The study provides insight into environmental justice and formulates operational urban forest management to mitigate heat exposure, lessen drought issues, and conserve water use for urban heat mitigation and resilient planning in environmentally and ecologically stressed cities. 

Citation: Zhu, Y., Myint, S. W., Feng, X., & Li, Y. [2023]. An innovative scheme to confront the trade-off between water conservation and heat alleviation with environmental justice for urban sustainability: The case of Phoenix, Arizona. AGU Advances, 4, e2022AV000816. https://doi.org/10.1029/2022AV000816 

—Don Wuebbles, Editor, AGU Advances

Text © 2023. The authors. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
Except where otherwise noted, images are subject to copyright. Any reuse without express permission from the copyright owner is prohibited.

Text © 2023. The authors. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
Except where otherwise noted, images are subject to copyright. Any reuse without express permission from the copyright owner is prohibited.