SY030-0008
CAL THRIVES - A California Toolkit for Heat Resiliency in Underserved Populations

Thursday, 10 December 2020
Poster
Max Wei1, Kaiyu Sun1, Ronnen Levinson1, Henry Willem1, Tianzhen Hong1, Wanni Zhang1, Zhaoyun Zeng1, Yujie Xu1, Susan Mazur-Stommen2, Haley Gilbert2, George A Ban-Weiss3, Yuxi Liu4, Janice Mathurin5 and Yolanda Sue Randles5, (1)Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, United States, (2)Indicia Consulting, Hinton, United States, (3)University of Southern California, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Los Angeles, CA, United States, (4)University of Southern California, Los Angeles, United States, (5)West Fresno Family Resource Center, Fresno, CA, United States
Abstract:
Extreme heat is the leading cause of weather-related deaths in the United States. California is expected to have 25 to 50 extreme heat days per year by the year 2050. Heat-related deaths in the state could increase two to threefold by 2050, and mortality for seniors could rise tenfold by 2100.

Residents of disadvantaged communities (DACs) who live in older homes are especially vulnerable to extreme heat events, because such homes suffer from high solar heat and internal heat gains. This interdisciplinary project is developing a Cooling Resilience Toolkit to help the most underserved populations to better weather increasingly extreme heat. It will provide tools and materials to cities and communities, such as prioritized passive and active in-home cooling measures based on local potential and residents’ preferences; and guidance to inform local spending on climate adaptation and local utility programs. The project focuses on DACs in Southwest Fresno since that area is a disadvantaged community with high unemployment and poor air quality.

Qualitative data are collected via home interviews and focus groups to understand residents’ needs, preferences, behaviors, priorities, concerns, barriers to proposed building cooling strategies, and coping mechanisms to extreme heat events. Neighborhood-scale building modeling is performed for two neighborhoods in Southwest Fresno. Both passive and active energy conservation measures (ECMs) are applied to the neighborhoods to evaluate their effectiveness on improving heat resilience. Modeled passive ECMs include attic insulation, cool roofs, window films, cool walls, and natural ventilation. Active ECMs include ceiling fans, portable fans, and evaporative cooling equipment replacement with window air conditioners (AC) or mini-split ACs. Safety and heat resilience metrics are quantified in scenarios both with and without grid power available. Heat vulnerability mapped at the census tract level for the City of Fresno considers diverse factors influencing residents’ heat exposure, heat sensitivity, and adaptivity to extreme heat.

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