Smart Surfaces Peer Learning Network

The Smart Surfaces Peer Learning Network supports a rapidly growing community of urban infrastructure practitioners interested in adopting Smart Surfaces as a cost-effective way to combat extreme heat and stormwater flooding, address environmental injustice, improve public health, save money, and slow global warming.

Objectives

The Peer Learning Network builds on SSC's Cities for Smart Surfaces initiative, connecting urban infrastructure practitioners nationwide with resources for Smart Surface project design, federal funding opportunities, and policy development.
The Peer Learning Network serves as a convening space for urban infrastructure practitioners to exchange technical and experiential knowledge about Smart Surfaces, including innovative projects and best practices for policy design and implementation.
The Peer Learning Network’s priority is to accelerate the adoption of Smart Surfaces in cities across the United States through peer-to-peer learning and collaboration.

WHAT ARE SMART SURFACEs?

Smart Surfaces are a suite of infrastructure strategies that enable a city to cost-effectively manage sun and rain while maximizing health, climate, and equity co-benefits. Traditional city surfaces are often dark and impervious, especially in low-income communities and communities of color, leading to increases in urban heat and flood risk. In contrast, Smart Surfaces are green, reflective, and/or permeable. Smart Surfaces can help to redress structural inequalities by cutting heat and creating a healthier environment for everyone—regardless of income, zip code, or race.

Green surfaces such as urban trees and rain gardens retain stormwater, create wildlife habitat, and cool the city via shading and evapotranspiration. Lighter, more reflective surfaces (i.e. cool roofs and cool pavements) reduce urban temperatures and slow climate change by reflecting solar radiation back into space. Porous surfaces include permeable pavers and green stormwater infrastructure, which slow and filter stormwater runoff, mitigating flood risk and supporting a healthy watershed. Solar photovoltaics also constitute a Smart Surface solution, as they enable a city to convert sunshine into clean, renewable energy, and can even provide shade. When deployed in concert across a city, Smart Surfaces can lower peak summer temperatures by upwards of 5 degrees Fahrenheit, reducing heat-related mortality and greatly improving livability.

faqs

Smart Surfaces provide a wide array of benefits to cities, which are quantified in depth in the Delivering Urban Resilience report. Smart Surfaces help to mitigate the urban heat island effect, manage stormwater and reduce flood risk, and improve city livability. Due to their cooling effects, Smart Surfaces also improve public health and reduce energy costs. Research indicates that when deployed city-wide, Smart Surfaces generate $5 in benefits for every dollar spent.
Peers meet virtually once each quarter to discuss innovative Smart Surface projects, share best practices, and collaborate to accelerate the adoption of Smart Surfaces as an urban design standard and climate resilience strategy.
The Smart Surfaces Peer Learning Network is designed to support city staff who are actively working on, or interested in, sustainability and resilience in the built environment. We welcome officials from sustainability, water, transportation, planning and budgetary offices, among others.
Peers will receive exclusive access to data and information curated by the Smart Surfaces Coalition, including model ordinances, funding opportunities, grant templates, product databases, and lessons from the C4SS cohort.