Plan integration for urban extreme heat: Evaluating the impacts of plans at multiple scales in Tokyo, Japan

Urban extreme heat is an increasingly prevalent hazard in many parts of the world. Its impact can be amplified when community land use plans fail to work together to reduce vulnerability. It is important for planners to track plan integration with respect to urban extreme heat, but scholarship is currently limited. We address this knowledge gap by extending the Plan Integration for Resilience Scorecard™ (PIRS™) method to evaluate extreme heat hazards in Tokyo, Japan. We analyze the integration of Tokyo's network of plans in addressing heat vulnerability, and whether it targets the communities most exposed to urban extreme heat. This study expands the PIRS™ methodology by (1) accounting for multiple tiers of plans, (2) adapting it beyond the Euro-American context, and (3) widening its thematic focus from flooding to urban extreme heat. This approach reveals that plans in Tokyo are generally integrated in supporting heat vulnerability reduction and that policies related to preserving and creating green-blue networks, environmental performance, and directly addressing hazards play a critical role in vulnerability reduction. However, a mismatch exists between policy attention and exposure, as many vulnerability-reducing policies fail to benefit the communities most exposed to urban extreme heat.