Sydney Science Park

The Heat Island Group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory works to cool buildings, cities, and the planet by making roofs, pavements, and cars cooler in the sun.

Includes "turn down the heat: strategy and action plan"; reports; media releases.

Over the past seven years more than 100 research projects at the Co-operative Research Centre for Low Carbon Living, in collaboration with industry across Australia, have pondered a very big question: How do we build future cities that are sustainable, liveable and affordable?

The City of Sydney is increasingly experiencing the UHI effect due to its numerous urban development projects
and changes in climate. In the Sydney context, this ongoing research aims to explore the most heat resilient
urban features at precinct scale. It covers five high density precincts in central Sydney and is based on a
nocturnal remote-sensing thermal image of central Sydney taken on 6 February 2009. Comparing the surface
temperature of streetscapes and buildings’ rooftops (dominant urban horizontal surfaces), indicates that open
public spaces and particularly streetscapes are the most sensitive urban elements to the sUHI effect. The
correlations between street network intensity, open public space plot ratio, urban greenery plot ratio and sUHI
effect is being analysed in Sydney’s high density precincts. Results indicate that higher open space plot ratio and
street network intensity correlate significantly to higher sUHI effect at precinct scale. However, higher urban
greenery plot ratio can effectively mitigate the sUHI effect in high density precincts.

From the Penrith City Council site looking at a house that has been designed to better cope with the heat in Western Sydney. Click the links on the page for further information and videos.

The Hub is one of the most sustainable community buildings in NSW. It is one of the first examples of single story CLT construction in Australia. This highly innovative prefabricated solid timber structural system can be carbon neutral. A geothermal heating and cooling system reduces C02 emissions for air conditions by 50%. The rooftop photovoltaic array offsets a significant amount of the buildings lighting energy requirement, saving 25.6 tonnes in CO2 emissions.

EPA (USA); this website contains Environmental topics; Laws & Regulations; impacts; resources; webcasts; reducing the risks.

Impacts of climate change - Urban Heat

Discover how we are helping to build cities that are fit for the future

Increasing extreme heat will have profound
impacts on people, industries and ecosystems in
Western Sydney. CSIRO and Bureau of
Meteorology projections estimate that the
average number of days over 35 could increase by
up to five times without strong climate policies
from a historical average of 11 up to 52 days by
2090. Some parts of Western Sydney will
experience even more extreme heat days.