Louisville, KY

Round 3

Louisville, Ky

Proposal for Local Sustainability Matching Fund

Fall 2013

Project Title:Coming Together to Understand and Reduce Louisville’s Urban Heat Island

Purpose of Project: Louisville has a growing urban heat problem; we want to understand why and how to reduce it, and work as a community to do so.

Brief description of project goals, strategy, and key activities:

We plan to engage a distinguished researcher of the drivers of urban heat and its impactsto develop a comprehensive urban heat island assessment for Louisville and to use that information to develop anurban heat mitigation plan. Those elements will allow us to build a robust community engagement program with elements targeted specifically to stakeholders in areas feeling the greatest urban heat impact and to undertake strategic project implementation in order to maximize our resources. We need to understand the local causes of this effect in order to successfully undertake strategies to mitigate these drivers. Furthermore, we need to engage the community in implementing solutions and to instill UHI considerations into both the public and private sectors’ building and development decision-making process.

Without a baseline, we cannot measure progress. Without understanding what drives our urban heat problem, we cannot say what mitigation steps will be most effective. Without understanding the problem, we cannot communicate it to our community. This project will establish our baseline and enable us to measure our progress. It will inform our policy decisions and resource allocation, and it will give us a nucleus around which to build community partnerships.

Primary Contact Person

Name: / Maria Koetter
Title: / Director of Sustainability
Organization: / Louisville Metro Government
Mailing address: / 527 W. Jefferson Street
City: / Louisville / State: / KY / Zip: / 40202
Email: /
Telephone: / 502-574-4148 / Ext:

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