The heavily urbanized cities, particularly in developing countries show higher air temperatures than the others, which is due to the climate change intensified by Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect. Climate projections estimate that the frequency and the intensity of extreme weather events are expected to increase through the end of century. Extreme hot days will result in intensification of heat island on the highly urbanized cities. Therefore climate change may have adverse impact on the infrastructure and quality of life as well as human health in these cities. Hence, new action plans, new policies and relevant regulations to manage climate change-induced hazard mitigation in the cities are required. Despite these risks, most of the cities in worldwide have not yet addressed the risks related to climate change. In this study, ERAfrica project based on local climate changes in 3 cities of Cairo, Nairobi and Istanbul with different population, urban structure, land use classification and climate characteristics is introduced. ERAfrica project intents to promote a unified European approach to collaborate with Africa in the field of science and technology for innovation and sustainable development. The main purpose of the project is to estimate the local climate changes in these cities up to 2100 based on the regional climate model COSMO-CLM and compare the effectivity and feasibility of different climate change adaptation strategies using an urban climate model. Different scenarios based on the changes in landscape and land use, the use of green roofs and green facades, high albedo materials, urban planning and urban design are developed to cope with the adverse climate change affects. The results will be shared to the national stake holders. In this study, as part of the project framework, urban heat island and the heat wave characteristics due to the storage, radiative and turbulent transfers of heat by the modified land surface for urban development in Istanbul are examined for the period of 1960-2013. Turkish State Meteorological Service, Istanbul Disaster Coordination Center, meteorological observations and also daily MODIS data are used for this evaluation. The preliminary results will be presented.