When the temperature goes up, head for some greenery

Have you ever noticed the differences in temperature between a space filled with pavement and buildings and one with greenery? If so, then you likely won’t be surprised by the findings of Song and colleagues (2023).

Song and her colleagues investigated how the presence of greenery in urban spaces impacted the number of heat related deaths. An important part of their research was that they used Google street view to identify eye level greenery. This was different from most prior studies which exclusively used satellite images to identify greenery. This is less accurate because it misses greenery that is blocked by infrastructure or even by other greenery such as trees blocking detection of bushes and other lower growing plants. Eye level greenery was more closely related to differing health outcomes compared to satellite identified greenery.

Eye level greenery was particularly impactful for individuals over 64 and during extreme heat events. This is important because it could have impacts on planning to improve health outcomes. Especially since, as the author’s note, it isn’t possible to separate the impacts of the vegetation on decreasing the temperatures versus other potential connections to the vegetation such as people being more active in areas with more vegetation.

Further research of eye level greenery is important to better understand the relationships, causal and otherwise. However, this study highlights differences between using eye level measurements versus satellite imagery. Something that should be explored further as the potential for extreme heat events continues to increase in the face of climate change.