Could growing veg keep cities cool?
European cities are designed in such a way that they become vulnerable to ‘Urban Heat Islands’ – essentially higher temperatures in urban areas than if you were stood in a field in the same location. A recent study has shown this could be mitigated by the cooling impacts of allotments.
Urban heat islands only increasing in quantity, due to higher population density and infrastructure concentration, which of course also increases environmental phenomenons such as wind tunnels or the ‘fryscaper’ (glass skyscrapers acting as a magnifying glass to the sun).
However a recent large scale study, has explained how allotments could have a similar cooling effect seen by waterways and green spaces more commonly. Allotments were found to cool the inhabited area by approximately 4.1 million people by up to 2.8C.
The authors recommend that spatial policies should prioritise locating smaller allotments in city centres, to enhance heat resilience in densely populated cities and their surrounding commuting zones.
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