Increasing urban vegetation can reduce heat-related deaths by a third, with a longitudinal study finding more than a million lives could have been saved around the world over the 20 years from 2000.
The research, led by Monash University Professor Yuming Guo, involved a 20-year modelling study of the impact of increasing greenness in more than 11,000 urban areas between 2000 to 2019.
Professor Guo said increasing urban vegetation by 30 percent would have saved 1.16 million lives globally and almost 2800 in Australia and New Zealand.
He said increasing vegetation levels by 20 percent would have saved 1.02 million and 860,000 lives would have been saved with a 10 percent increase.
“The impact on lives of increasing urban vegetation is impacted by different climate types, greenness levels, socioeconomic statuses and demographic characteristics.”
Professor Guo said urban areas in Southern Asia, Eastern Europe, and Eastern Asia had the greatest reduction in heat-related deaths.
“While increasing greenness has been proposed as a heat-related death mitigation strategy, this is the first modelling study to estimate both the cooling and modifying effects of greenness.
“This gives us a more comprehensive assessment of its benefits in mitigating heat-related mortality,” he said.
“These findings indicate that preserving and expanding greenness might be potential strategies to lower temperature and mitigate the health impacts of heat exposure.”
He said heat exposure was a major public health threat and was increasing due to climate change.
“Between 2000-2019, heat exposure was associated with 0.5 million deaths per year, accounting for 0.91 percent of global mortality.”
Professor Guo said if the level of vegetation had been increased by 30 per cent the average number of lives saved from 2000 to 2019 by region would have been:
- Europe: 396,955.
- North America: 69,306.
- Latin American and the Caribbean: 123,085.
- Africa: 35,853.
- Asia: 527,989.
- Oceania: 2733.
- Australia and New Zealand: 2759.
Read the full study: Estimating the urban heat-related mortality burden due to greenness: a global modelling study.
