Disaster Resilience Scorecard for Cities: Addendum for Extreme Heat Risk Management

Disaster Resilience Scorecard for Cities: Addendum for Extreme Heat Risk Management

Heatwaves are one of the most severe effects of climate change and record-breaking temperatures are increasing in both frequency and intensity. Urban areas are especially vulnerable, with roughly half of all cities having faced increased heat exposure in the last forty years. As the world’s population continues to urbanise, local governments have an important opportunity and responsibility to act early, reduce exposure, and build long-term urban resilience to extreme heat.

The Extreme Heat Risk Management Scorecard, developed as an addendum to the Disaster Resilience Scorecard for Cities, aims to support sub-national and local governments in assessing and strengthening their heat risk management efforts. It draws on global guidance and good practices, including the MCR2030 Urban Heat Risk Management Resource Package and Flames of Change: Innovating heat and wildfire governance for inclusive communities, along with a growing body of research, case studies, and tools designed to support cities in developing effective and equitable responses to extreme heat.

This Extreme Heat Risk Management Scorecard tool is designed to help local government officials, planners, and stakeholders identify gaps, set priorities, and track progress in building extreme heat resilience. It focuses on practical actions that reduce heat exposure, protect people, and integrate heat risk into long-term planning and investment decisions.

The Scorecard is structured around the Ten Essentials for Making Cities Resilient, covering key areas such as governance, risk assessment, financial planning, urban development, infrastructure resilience, ecosystems, social inclusion, emergency preparedness, and recovery planning. It incorporates feedback and comments from peer reviews and a pilot conducted with local authorities, national governments, and partner institutions from over 15 countries during a capacity building workshop organized by UNDRR Global Education and Training Institute (GETI).

There is a total of 18 indicators, each scored on a scale from 0 to 3, with 3 representing strong and integrated action to address extreme heat risk, and 0 representing little to no action.

The Scorecard is designed for use in multi-stakeholder workshops, engaging participants from all relevant sectors representing ‘system of systems’, including but not limited to, the mayor’s office, municipal departments responsible for disaster risk management, climate and environment, urban planning, public health, education, communication, transportation, water, agricultural, meteorology, budget and finance, social affairs, engineer, and commerce. It also encourages participation from civil society organizations, private sector representatives, academia, scientific institutions, and community leaders. 

This addendum is available in the following formats:

• The Accessible PDF version is made to allow universal access to the document.
• The excel tool allows you to provide interactive scoring, take note of the assessment rationale, and provide proof for verification. The excel tool can produce the pictograms showing the results of analysis at the end which are highly useful for planning and decision making. It complements the narrative provided in the PDF version.

For more information:
1. Urban Extreme Heat Risk Management - Resource Package (2025)
2. Flames of change: Innovating heat and wildfire governance for inclusive communities (2024)
3. Flames of change II: Urban action on extreme heat across Europe and Central Asia (2025)