Exploring DAD and ADD Methods for Dealing with Urban Heat Island Effect

The Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect in the context of climate change and temperature fluctuations is an increasing challenge for contemporary cities. Numerous activities focus on mitigation and adaptation to the UHI effect using both appropriately selected design strategies and technological solutions. However, not all of these technologies support the postulates of ecological and low-carbon cities. Their design, implementation, and operation process sometimes causes conflicts or misunderstandings among designers, industry engineers, and residents. The aim of the research was to examine the relationship between UHI effect mitigation, adaptation, and energy efficiency strategies. A further goal was to build a matrix of synergistic elements and conflicts for respective actors and stakeholders, and an analysis of the elitist DAD (Decide-Announce-Defend) method and participatory ADD (Announce-Discuss-Decide) or EDD (Engage-Deliberate-Decide) in dealing with the UHI effect. The literature review and case study analysis methods were applied. In the study, the strategies of five chosen European capitals (Berlin, London, Paris, Vienna, and Warsaw) experiencing a UHI problem were analyzed. As result, a matrix of the most common goal differences of respective stakeholders in dealing with the UHI effect was developed. One of the main conclusions is the necessity of undergoing synergic collaboration between actors that are not cooperating yet, combined with risk analysis and appropriate education at different levels for a successful and socially equal mitigation and adaptation to the UHI effect.