From Milan to Rome, here’s how many deaths could be avoided by planting trees against the heat
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Trees save lives. In a city like RomeFor example, increasing tree cover from the current 9% to 30% could prevent more than 200 deaths a year. TO Barcelona little more, a Madrid would help prevent 233 deaths, a London about 160. These and other data are the result of a research that began almost eight years ago and led by the Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) of Barcelona to understand how in 93 European citiesincluding nine Italiansthousands of deaths especially in the summer period are caused by urban heat islands and how these could be avoided by increasing the number of trees in cities.
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In the study, which is based on data collected since 2015 and now published in the prestigious journal The Lancetit is reported that over 4% of summer mortality in European metropolises is attributable to urban heat islands, phenomena where – often due to lack of shade and ventilation and excessive overbuilding – a warmer microclimate in certain areas of the city, compared to peripheral and rural areas, for example. However, the study also estimates that one-third of heat island-related deaths could be avoided if 30% of urban space was covered by trees.
Based on this necessary percentage increase for example a Milan – which today has an average tree cover of around 6% – 60 summer deaths a year could be avoided. TO Naplesinstead planting 17% more trees would avoid 70 deaths or a Palermo (15% coverage) around 30 victims, while a Turin on the basis of the same calculations there would be seventy fewer deaths.
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For experts, the substantial benefits of planting more trees, including for people’s health, are clear and should be increasingly considered in the redesign cities towards a future in which the climate crisis will continue to strongly impact the lives of residents. Various previous studies recall how exposure to heat waves can lead to premature mortality, cardiorespiratory diseases and hospitalizations, both in cases of extreme temperatures and with moderately high ones. Today – while the inexorable shift towards ever more populated cities continues throughout the world – it is therefore necessary for experts to think about the impacts that less vegetation, greater population density and impermeable surfaces of buildings and roads can play on the ratio temperature and health of citizens.
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Indeed, this effect is set to worsen: “Predictions based on current emissions reveal that heat-related illnesses and deaths will become a major burden on our health services in the coming decades,” said Tamara Iungman, ISGlobal researcher and first author of the study. . The results obtained from the study are the result of an analysis of data relating to the summer of 2015 and are based both on the differences between rural and urban temperatures for each city, and on the estimates of premature mortality by simulating a hypothetical scenario without an urban heat island and a with the reduction in temperature that would be obtained by increasing the tree cover to 30%.
It emerges how compared to rural areas the cities in the analyzed period were on average 1.5 degrees warmera factor that is estimated to have had an impact on 6,700 premature deaths (4.3% of total mortality during the summer months and 1.8% of mortality throughout the year). However, experts have calculated that a third of these deaths (2,644) could have been avoided with just one tree cover greater.
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In particular, the metropolises of southern and eastern Europe, those most exposed to high temperatures and least “protected” by trees, would obtain the most benefits. “Our goal – he explains Mark Nieuwenhuijsendirector of ISGlobal’s Urban Planning, Environment and Health Initiative – is to inform local decision-makers on the benefits of integrating green spaces in all neighborhoods, in order to promote more sustainable, resilient and healthy urban environments”.
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Furthermore, specifies the researcher, one of the decisive challenges for cities will also be that of “preserving and maintaining the trees already present, because they are a precious resource and the growth of new trees takes a long time. It is not just a matter of increasing the trees in city, but also to understand how they are distributed”.
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Finally, as also recalled by the Italian Antonio Gasparrini, professor of biostatistics and epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and one of the authors of the study, “vulnerability to heat varies from city to city based on various factors Understanding the benefits of policies such as increased tree cover can help inform actions to reduce risks and prevent avoidable deaths, especially in the face of climate change.”
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