this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2023
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Planting more trees could reduce premature heat-related deaths in European cities by a third (theconversation.com)
submitted 2 years ago by Treevan@aussie.zone to c/treehuggers@slrpnk.net
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Our research calculated the death rates of urban inhabitants across 93 European cities between June and August 2015.

In 2015, Gothenburg in Sweden recorded no premature UHI deaths, while urban heat was responsible for 32 premature deaths per 100,000 people in the Romanian city Cluj-Napoca.

Tree planting programmes must therefore encourage residents to plant trees.

So increasing tree cover to 30% may be challenging for some European cities.

Incorporating urban green infrastructure into cities should make them more resilient to climate change.

Preserving existing trees and complementing tree planting schemes with other measures that reduce the intensity of UHIs, such as reducing car use, are similarly important.

Our study suggests that by increasing tree coverage, premature UHI deaths in European cities can be reduced.

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[โ€“] aksdb@feddit.de 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Unfortunately it's also a bit too late to just plant them. Thanks to the regular drought it got quite challenging keeping them alive. Not to mention that it takes 10 years or more of good growth to be noticable.

[โ€“] Treevan@aussie.zone 3 points 2 years ago

Not in the (sub)tropics though. We can get 2m in a few months.

But yeah, you're right, the change in climate change can make growing them harder. Redesigned rain gutters into tree pits, structural soils, biochar, species selection from a wider climatic range, advanced stock, etc, could be techniques to make it a little easier and more noticeable quicker.

Urban forester is going to be a tough job going into the future but it's an important challenge. I did it and loved it, but our local Council really dropped the ball on it unfortunately. We just came off a La Nina with 3 years of record rainfalls, barely a tree went in. You watch them struggle to plant a heap in the worst drought of our lifetimes.