Climate-Resilient Schoolyards: Comparative Strategies and Priorities for Urban Climate Adaptation

Schools are increasingly recognised as critical public infrastructure for climate adaptation, particularly in heat-vulnerable and park-poor neighbourhoods. This study examines climate-resilient schoolyards as urban cooling systems, social spaces and educational landscapes. We conduct a comparative review of nine international programmes for schoolyard transformation (Paris, Barcelona, Madrid, Milan, Rotterdam, Los Angeles, New York, Melbourne and Santiago de Chile), drawing on municipal plans, reports and implementation guidelines. We examine programmes’ design strategies, governance configurations and monitoring approaches, and synthesise them through a CAME (Correct, Adapt, Maintain, Explore) framework. Building on this analysis, we develop a Multicriteria Analysis (MCA) structure to prioritise interventions according to four fam-ilies of criteria: environmental and climatic performance, social and educational equity, urban integration and accessibility, and feasibility and co-benefits. Results highlight a recurrent toolkit of measures—depaving, tree planting, cool and permeable surfaces, nature-based drainage systems, BIPV shade canopies and sensor-based monitoring—that can reduce surface temperatures by around 10–12 °C while improving thermal comfort, biodiversity and community use beyond school hours. We argue that climate-resilient schoolyards should be planned as networks of essential public infrastructure and that the combined CAME–MCA framework offers a robust, transferable decision-support tool for local governments and school authorities.