Microclimate Walks: A Participatory Approach to Urban Climate Awareness and Climate-Sensitive Planning

Raising public awareness about how urban planning decisions influence well-being through changes in the urban microclimate is essential for fostering resilient and climate-sensitive cities. This research presents a participatory engagement method, the microclimate walks, designed to enhance urban climate awareness and support environmental justice efforts.

The microclimate walks have been successfully conducted with professional groups, students, and community members in collaboration with environmental justice and non-profit organizations. At the start of the walk, participants are randomly assigned human or non-human roles that reflect different thermoregulatory needs and living conditions of a particular individual or specie. Participants are encouraged to embody these roles throughout the walk. Over the course of an hour, participants follow a predefined route, where they are introduced to key concepts of urban climate, the impacts of weather extremes (such as heat waves) on health and well-being, and the role of urban planning and design in mitigating these effects. Participants collect and record microclimate data at different locations throughout the walk using state-of-the-art environmental instruments, giving them an opportunity to compare sensorial experiences with empirical evidence.

The walk concludes with a group discussion comparing microclimate measurements across sites and examining their implications for different roles. These insights are then connected to broader environmental justice efforts in the city, reinforcing the link between urban form, microclimate, and advocacy needs for targeted nature-based solutions implementation.

This method offers an effective and engaging approach to raising public awareness involving diverse stakeholders, and can be integrated into participatory co-design activities to inform climate-sensitive urban planning.