Europe: A new study found that planting more trees could mean fewer people die from the increasingly high summer temperatures in cities.

According to the study conducted on 93 European cities, increasing the level of tree cover from the European average of 14.9 percent to 30 percent can help lower the temperature in cities by 0.4 °C, which could eventually reduce heat-related deaths by 39.5 percent.

The lead author of the study published in the medical journal, Lancet, Ms. Tamara Lungman, from the Barcelona Institute for Global Health, remarked that “this is becoming increasingly urgent as Europe experiences more extreme temperature fluctuations caused by climate change.”

“We already know that high temperatures in urban environments are associated with negative health outcomes, such as cardiorespiratory failure, hospital admission, and premature death,” the researcher added.

The researchers used mortality data to estimate the potential reduction in deaths from lower temperatures due to increased tree coverage. By analysing data from 2015, they estimated that out of the 6,700 premature deaths due to higher urban temperatures, 2,644 could have been prevented by increasing tree cover.

The cities most likely to benefit from the increase in tree coverage are in southern and eastern Europe, where summer temperatures are highest and tree coverage tends to be lower.

According to the study co-author, Mr. Mark Nieuwenhuijsen, a researcher at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health, there was no need for buildings to be razed and replaced with parks since there is enough space to plant more trees in all the cities the team looked at.

Mr. Nieuwenhuijsen added that cities that are “too car-dominated” should consider replacing asphalt roads, which absorb heat, with trees.

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