Water Smart Cities Increase Irrigation to Provide Cool Refuge in a Climate Crisis

Water smart cities are increasing their use of irrigation and misting to cope with extreme heat and drought. This is being enabled by widespread use of rainwater tanks, stormwater capture and storage systems, and recycled sewage wastewater to irrigate street trees as well as private and public green spaces. These alternative water resources provide new options for cities to better withstand and function under extreme summer heatwave conditions with little or no impact on drinking water supplies. Small-scale approaches to evaporatively cool urban animals, vegetation habitat, and people are showing initial success. However, ongoing testing and modeling are needed to understand the impacts of scaling up these interventions and to evaluate their cost-effectiveness. We describe current innovations in irrigation of Australian cities to help policy development in other countries and cities experiencing similar climates with episodic summer heatwaves.