More trees in cities ‘would cut number of heatwave deaths’

HEATWAVE deaths in cities could be cut by a third by planting more trees, researchers have found.

Last year, England’s summer heatwaves brought 2,800 more deaths than normal among the over-65s, who are most vulnerable to temperature spikes.

Cities are worse for deaths because dark surfaces trap heat, leading to temperatures that can be 7C hotter than the surrounding countryside.

Now researchers in Spain have suggested that hundreds of lives could be saved by using trees. Trees work to cool the air by providing shade and also absorbing heat energy during evapotranspiration – where water in the tree evaporates as it gets hotter.

Experts estimate that increasing tree canopy coverage to 30 per cent would lower temperatures by almost half a degree and cut heat deaths by one third.

For the research, published in The Lancet, experts studied mortality data from 93 European cities in the blisteringly hot summer of 2015, where 6,700 deaths were attributed to hot urban temperatures. The mortality rates were compared with rural populations.