How community maps can protect children from extreme heat
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Dallas is the seventh hottest city in the USA according to the Texas Tree Foundation - a non-profit organisation that aims to improve green spaces and plant trees in urban areas. The foundation is combatting extreme heat and heat inequality using existing data from their urban heat island management study. It has set a target to protect and increase Dallas' tree canopy from 32% to 37% by 2040, totalling to almost 15 million trees in the city. In 2015, the Texas Tree Foundation launched a 'cool schools' programme to plant more trees in lower income neighbourhoods, with the aim of providing at least a minimum of 27% shading and cooling relief. The programme has been an effective education effort and it has seen 300-500 children volunteers from each school participate in planting trees. To date the volunteers have planted over 2,000 trees around their school campuses.
The Texas Green Schools project in Houston has used heat watch mapping data to introduce a programme aimed at reducing energy consumption in schools and increasing access to green spaces for students in lower-income neighbourhoods. Measures include building shade structures and installing energy-efficient air conditioning systems to reduce indoor temperatures in schools by 15-20C (59-68F), and providing cooling relief for students who live in hotter neighbourhoods.
"Increasing building standards and building in a more energy-efficient way is integral to mitigate the effects of extreme weather, and the long-term effects on young children," says O'Sullivan.
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