Posts tagged with 'trees'
Cities and towns in the Mediterranean and the Middle East have long used white or light-colored roofs and walls to help keep people cool. Today, cities from Ahmedabad to Singapore are also turning to cool roofs to reduce urban heat ...
Soweto, Johannesburg’s largest township, faces dual climate threats from flooding and extreme heat. These threats are compounded by the township’s soaring unemployment and an economy dominated by low-value and informal sectors. As a result, many residents have unpredictable livelihoods and ...
When torrential rains hit Kinshasa in April 2025, the city of 20 million came to a standstill. Floodwaters submerged more than half the city as the Ndjili River and smaller streams overflowed, quickly overwhelming the city’s drainage capacity. Lives were ...
In Shenzhen’s Houhai Central District, summer temperatures climb higher each year. Last summer, the city recorded a blistering 37.5 degrees C (99.5 degrees F), one of its hottest days in decades. For residents in dense, aging apartment blocks, staying cool ...
On a hot summer afternoon, the difference between one city block and the next can feel like a different world. On one street, the sun beats down from above while the pavement radiates heat from below. Just around the corner, ...
On a hot day in February 2024, volunteers dispersed across Cape Town, South Africa, with sensors affixed to their cars. Their aim was to measure heat differences across the city. In Cape Town’s dense, highly developed center, they recorded air temperatures ...
When the weather heats up in Belo Horizonte, residents of Morro do Papagaio get creative. “A lot of people put their blankets in the refrigerator,” said Amanda Lima, a 24-year-old university student, activist and resident of the south-central region of ...
Twenty years ago, the forested slopes above Alpine Acres — a small community at the source of the Weber River in Summit County, Utah — were overgrown with dry brush and primed for wildfire. With only one road in and ...
An ambitious reforestation program in Dire Dawa’s watershed is helping to restore hundreds of hectares of farmland and reduce flood risk, while providing 7,000 new jobs and economic opportunities, especially for women and young adults. Dire Dawa, Ethiopia, is known ...
Every spring, Johannesburg’s streets are transformed by a sea of purple as thousands of jacaranda trees burst into bloom. The lavender canopy is a defining feature of the city, as well as of nearby Pretoria. But few know this ...
In the summer of 2024, Dutch citizens ranked climate change as the most serious problem facing the world. Just a few months later, they elected a national government that ran on a platform of pulling back its climate policies. This isn’t just ...
As cities try to restore the benefits of natural systems by mimicking how ecosystems function, one option they can use is nature-based solutions (NBS). However, cities often struggle to determine which types of interventions best suit their local context, due ...
In a city, a grassy park might be a place to stretch out with a book, an asphalt road your route to work, a building wall a canvas for a mural. But beyond their familiar roles, each of these surfaces ...
Nearly a decade ago, the world rallied around the Paris Agreement on climate change and the goal of holding global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F). Since then, the “1.5C goal” has become the world’s North Star ...
Sprawl is a known and widespread challenge for rapidly growing cities across the world. Unplanned, inefficient development encroaches on natural resources and ecosystems, often reaching far beyond established transit networks. Residents of sprawling urban areas often face socioeconomic vulnerabilities and ...
