Extreme heat — and the numerous concerns that come with it — has become a challenge for cities across the country, as they consider resiliency strategies for a present and future impacted by climate change. Riverside hosted the inaugural Extreme Heat Summit last September, a partnership with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The event served as a simulated emergency planning event with public and private entities and nonprofits. One innovative solution that came out of it is the neighborhood-level TreePlotter, a community engagement map showing where trees are located in the city. “It’s really detailed. It will tell you what the species is, what the coverage is,” Dawson said during a panel discussion Tuesday with other public officials and researchers about how cities and states are responding to extreme weather. The event was hosted by the School of Climate, Environment and Society at Clark University. “We can assess our tree canopy, see where the gaps are. It’s helpful, when we apply for grants,” Dawson said, explaining some of the benefits of the tree database. Many cities are not naive about the ways extreme weather is impacting their residents, infrastructure and other aspects of daily life, said Mark Davidson, an urban geographer with Clark University. But what they often lack, he said, is the capacity to act on these concerns. Often the limitation is funding, or the in-house expertise. “The harder question for them is, how do we act on what we know at this stage. So, how do we get the capacity?” Davidson said during the panel. “It’s really difficult to ask fiscally constrained cities to manage something like climate risk, which is now a permanent problem.” Officials lamented a “stepping back” by the federal government to prepare communities for extreme weather. The Federal Emergency Management Agency Review