People walking through Downtown Vernon on a sunny summer day (photo by Liam Verster / Vernon Matters)

By Liam Verster

Heat Mitigation Survey

Academic study looking at heat mitigation options for Vernon

Jul 7, 2025 | 6:00 AM

A university student from Vernon is exploring opportunities to help mitigate the effects of extreme heat events on the local community.

Megan Turcato is working on her Masters of Community Planning at Vancouver Island University and is doing her thesis on heat mitigation opportunities, using Vernon as her case study.

To facilitate her studies, the doctoral candidate is running a survey entitled Stay cool: Improving use and vibrancy in small city downtowns during periods of very high heat.

“As part of my Masters thesis I have to do some research, and because we are expecting some more 30-plus degree days in most communities, including Vernon, in the coming decades than we have seen in the recent past, this would be a really useful thing to learn a lot about as an up-and-coming new community planner and to try to adapt to a Vernon context,” Turcato told Vernon Matters.

“The project is looking at how we can make outdoor urban places more popular to visit and more vibrant during periods of very high heat, which I’m defining as over 30 degrees.”

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She explained there are some obvious heat mitigation options already in use in Vernon, such as having trees and awnings in the downtown core to provide shade, though she wanted to explore practices being used elsewhere in the world as well.

“Because a lot of areas of the world have been a lot hotter for longer than we have been here in Canada and the Okanagan, other communities are doing a lot of different things,” the VIU student said. Those include awnings or structures that are very artistic and can provide an attraction as well as shade, and permeable pavement that’s cool.

Solar panels are also used as as shade structures, particularly on parking lots and some communities have shade structures over playgrounds.

Through the survey, Turcato hopes to hear from North Okanagan residents about their current usage of downtown Vernon spaces, how they keep cool in public and private spaces, and their thoughts on different heat mitigation strategies and how it would change their perception of and visitation to the downtown core.

“Part of use of public space is not just about whether you are empirically cool, it’s whether you feel cooler as well, there’s kind of a psychological element to it,” Turcato explained.

“So it’s worthwhile hearing from people subjectively about how they feel about some of these techniques, and then there’s a second phase that will involve talking to experts in this field about the feasibility about some of these preferred methods in Vernon specifically.”

The survey findings will be used for academic purposes, with Turcato telling Vernon Matters she will review the results to compile some recommendations or suggestions for heat mitigation opportunities in Vernon, which will be published as part of her thesis with VIU.

She added there could be an opportunity to bring it forward to the City of Vernon and other communities with similar environments once her studies are completed, though noted her focus for now is generating conversation and exploring what options are possible and feasible for the North Okanagan.

Turcato was unable to share a link to her survey with Vernon Matters due to regulations on how she could generate responses for the voluntary survey, but did say people may be able to find it on social media or on physical postings with QR codes around Vernon.