At this point, the effect of the so-called urban heat islands, so characteristic of Madrid, is undeniable: Little vegetation and a lot of asphalt and concrete causes heat to be retained in the ground. and then it comes off. A real problem that in 2008 made a group of residents from Portland, USA, decide to dismantle the concrete jungle that their home had become, pick and shovel in hand.
Since then they claim to have managed to raise nearly 33,000 square metres of pavement and transform desolate grey esplanades into small oases of vegetation. NASA has partnered with them to carry out this initiative.
Fighting the heat island effect with blows
If Portland has been known for anything, it is for the intensity of its rainfall. But climate change has changed this humid scenario into particularly intense heat waves since 2022. Depave was born as well as a non-profit neighbourhood association that wanted to make their city habitable in the face of the heat of asphalt. Since 2008 they have been lifting the pavement in their neighbourhoods to make way for greener areas.
But not all citizens experience heat waves in the same way: the most disadvantaged neighborhoods often lack green spaces. Thus, one of the main conclusions that NASA has reached after Studying the Portland Case It is low-income communities and people of color who are most exposed to extreme heat events, not only because they live in densely populated areas with a lack of vegetation, but also because they lack the resources to maintain a comfortable temperature at home.
Once these communities were identified, NASA partnered with Depave, this organization that has managed to replace pavement with green spaces in historically marginalized areas. The next step was to quantify the impact of this measure, and satellite images confirmed that in the areas where the neighbors lifted the pavement and covered it with vegetation, the temperature did indeed decrease.
A solution that has not been considered in Madrid since it has become the paradigm of a city covered in asphalt: instead of trees, awnings are put up. It is estimated that they have been lost tens of thousands of trees In recent years, the regional government has made changes to the Tree Law that allows trees to be cut down in certain circumstances in exchange for money, and not replanted as had been done previously.
To mitigate the increasingly suffocating heat, the ‘Wind Garden’ is on the table, a large spiral-shaped structure and covered with real vegetation that aims to capture the wind at high altitude and use it to cool its interior “by three to four degrees,” as its managers point out. But it will take a while to see it. And to notice it.
Photo | Depave/Facebook.
Source: www.motorpasion.com
