MORE SHOULD BE DONE TO HELP MAKE DARWIN COOL

DARWIN’S a hot place – there’s no denying that. And we know it’s only getting hotter. Two new studies have looked into the heat radiating through parts of Darwin and how best to mitigate it.

Government and council need to take these reports seriously and work towards cooling the city.

Granted, work has been done to “green” and in turn cool down the CBD.

But it’s been a long time coming.

Cyclone Marcus ripped through the city tearing down large shade-creating African mahogany trees.

The replanting of the trees took time as authorities worked to ensure whatever plants replaced the mahogany were more suited to our climate.

It also takes time for trees to grow, but hopefully in five to 10 years’ time the city will once again be covered in a green canopy.

The report pointed out new housing developments, industrial areas, roads and open rural areas were major heat creating areas.

With new developments, we should look to ensure heat mitigating initiatives are undertaken – including shady parkland.

Work needs to be done to help mitigate the heat generated from these areas – be it planting trees or implementing some other cooling measure.

With scientists predicting the number of 35C-plus days are only going to increase, our hot weather is a factor in why people leave or don’t visit – so if government is serious about attracting people here, then serious action needs to be undertaken to make living and working in our climate more bearable.

The report also highlighted water security should be something we work towards. We rely heavily on a good wet season to keep our dam topped up – but, as the past two Wets have proven, sometimes the rain doesn’t come.

We need to find innovative ways to improve our city from an environmental perspective.