As cities across North-West Europe become increasingly vulnerable to extreme heat, Cool Neighbourhoods is taking a proactive step: helping local authorities create Neighbourhood Heat Stress Action Plans (NHSAPs).
These NHSAPs are strategic, locally driven plans that help municipalities, community groups, and urban planners identify heat-related risks and take practical, evidence-based actions to protect the most vulnerable — while making neighbourhoods greener, cooler, and more liveable.
What does an NHSAP include?
Each NHSAP follows a structured but flexible format, meaning it can be adapted to different urban contexts. A typical plan includes:
✅ Heat Vulnerability Mapping
Combining sensor data, citizen science, and satellite imagery to pinpoint the
hottest areas and who is most affected.
✅ Local Risk Analysis
Identifying physical (e.g. lack of green space, concrete dominance) and social
(e.g. elderly populations, isolated households) vulnerabilities.
✅ Targeted Interventions
Greening, shading, water retention, reflective surfaces, and community cooling
strategies tailored to the neighbourhood’s specific needs.
✅ Community Engagement
Involving residents in both the design and implementation of actions — from
planting trees to monitoring progress.
✅ Monitoring & Evaluation
Using clear indicators to track impact and guide future improvements.
Who benefits from NHSAPs?
NHSAPs are designed to directly benefit:
- Local Authorities — by offering an adaptable, ready-to-use framework to tackle heat risk.
- Urban Planners & Environmental Officers — with data-driven guidance for interventions.
- Vulnerable Residents — who are often most at risk during heatwaves.
- NGOs, Schools, and Community Organisations — who can engage with the action plans as a means of education, resilience-building, and empowerment.
- Regional and EU Policymakers — as evidence for funding climate adaptation at the neighbourhood scale.
How are they developed?
NHSAPs are co-created using the Joint Training Scheme developed within Cool Neighbourhoods. This hands-on process combines expert input, citizen participation, and pilot testing to ensure each plan is:
- Locally owned and community-based
- Scalable across different regions
- Replicable beyond the nine Cool Neighbourhoods pilot areas
- Measurable and impactful over time
What’s next?
All nine Cool Neighbourhoods pilot sites — in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg — are developing their own NHSAPs. These will be showcased in late 2025, alongside open-access templates and toolkits for broader replication across Europe.
As temperatures continue to rise, NHSAPs are a vital tool to protect urban populations, especially the most vulnerable, and to build climate resilience from the ground up.