Shade Trees Reduce Impacts From Urban Heat Islands

Creating coverage lowers temperatures

Sabriga Turgon

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By Sabriga Turgon

These islands don’t lie off the coast of any country, they lie in the center. They can be hot enough to feel tropical. They hold millions of people and services. They are the hub of myriad lifestyles. And they not only contribute to, but grow from, climate change. Urban heat islands.

Urban heat islands are the areas inside cities that create, capture, and contain heat generated by the assorted machinations of urban life: buildings, machinery, exhaust emissions, waste, dense populations. Inside these centers of human activity, temperatures can be 1.8–5.4°F (1–3°C) hotter than the rural areas around them.

Rising heat increases the temperature of the air and pavement, which then contributes to rising water temperatures by heating storm water runoff. Rainwater in urban environments where pavement temperatures are 1000°F (380C) can increase rainwater temperature up to 250°F (140°C).

For hot little kids, playing in the rain on hot pavement is nothing but fun. When that heated rainwater drains into the sewer, however, it contributes to raising the temperature of neighboring streams, rivers, ponds, and lakes.

For aquatic species, that warmed rain draining from sidewalks and reaching their habitat can be a death knell.

Many species rely on cool water temperatures in order to reproduce and warmer water can impede that reproduction. Over time, these types of changes among various species create a general deterioration of the habitat’s natural balance.

But urban areas rich with trees help gather rainwater, sending it to the cool pavement beneath their branches and on to the watershed deep below.

REDUCING TEMPERATURES IN URBAN HEAT ISLANDS IS JUST GOOD BUSINESS.

Planting shade trees is one of the simplest and most effective ways to beat the heat in cities while putting the boil to business. According to the US Forest Service, “…consumers shop more frequently and longer in tree-lined commercial areas and are willing to spend more.”

Shade trees help cool and preserve urban sidewalks and streets. Slowing their decay…

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Sabriga Turgon

People lover & realistic optimist who encourages goodness in all things. Ghostwriter Global—let’s get that book out of your head & onto paper.