Strategic use of rural land and water bodies could help cool cities. (Adobe Stock photo) |
Scientists studied 30 cities in China "to understand how rural land cover affects urban heat islands — a phenomenon in which cities become significantly warmer than the areas surrounding them." Blakemore explains. "Researchers concluded neighboring rural land cover can explain about 30 percent of such regions’ effect on urban heat. . . . Air warms in cities, leaving a low-pressure zone near the ground that then helps transport cooler air from surrounding rural areas. The rural areas then go on to absorb the heat."
The study's analysis concluded with specific recommendations on how to "use less dense, less expensive rural land to increase cities’ cooling capacities," Blakemore reports. "Planting woodland around cities and consolidating bodies of water in rural areas are potential ways to cool cities. . . . By better regulating rural land, the researchers suggest, it could be possible to both maintain rural landscapes and boost rural economies while making urban areas cooler and more sustainable."
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