Adapting to Urban Heat: A Tool Kit for Local Governments

Adapting to Urban Heat: A Tool Kit for Local Governments is designed to help local governments reduce the effects of increased heat on their communities and citizens.  The report provides an analytic tool for policy makers to consider a combination of four built-environment changes (cool roofs, green roofs, cool pavements, and urban forestry), providing clear criteria for selecting among these approaches. It also examines the roles government can play in pursuing these changes: shaping government’s own operations, mandating or providing incentives for private choices, and engaging in public education.

Towards a Collaborative Strategy for Municipal Natural Asset Management: Private Lands

The Municipal Natural Assets Initiative aims to equip local governments across Canada with the tools needed to identify and account for natural assets at the community level, as well as the best practice guidelines for working with community stakeholders to increase natural asset management. As part of series of guiding documents being developed in collaboration with the Municipal Natural Assets Initiative (MNAI), this report highlights how local governments can include private land and private landowners in a comprehensive municipal natural asset management framework.