Event Description

With an increasingly urgent need to adapt to our changing climate, the built environment offers unique opportunities for programs and new practices that can protect and improve human health. In order to effectively capitalize on these opportunities, it is critical to engage stakeholders from real estate, development, public health, public policy, climate adaptation, and other industries. The challenges – such as more frequent and severe heat waves, wildfires, hurricanes, and floods — can be destructive to the built environment, harm human health, and displace communities. However, the solutions offered by intersectoral work can be cost effective, simple, and innovative. Through discussion and collaboration, implementing these types of solutions can add value to real communities, increase resilience, and improve quality of life.

The first installment in this series, California’s Landscape, will provide an overview of the current threats to our state (extreme heat, wildfire, sea level rise, drought, air quality) and discuss the ways each of these issues is mitigated/exacerbated by the built environment. Each of these topics will be linked back to health and equity and will lay groundwork for understanding the level of threat and set up discussion about ways to respond.