Paris authorities see trees as solution to excessive heat

As Paris goes through record temperatures due to the current heatwave, Paris authorities have been implementing a strategy to use increased vegetation to beat the urban heat effect caused by overcrowding and land surfaces covered by asphalt.

With the city continuing to be in the grips of a vicious heatwave, Paris authorities are turning to trees for a cool-off solution.

France 24 quoted Olivier Papin, an environmental engineer, who said “Trees have this great characteristic of being evapo-transpirators: they absorb water from the soil through their roots, transmit it through their trunks, branches and leaves, where it escapes through pores. When it escapes, the water cools the ambient air.”

The lack of vegetation, coupled with land surfaces covered with construction material such as bitumen and asphalt, results in a phenomenon known as the urban heat island, which makes cities hotter than neighbouring rural areas.

“The fact that underneath [the roads], you have dense concrete only make things worse. It acts like a giant heat reservoir, and when night falls, all the heat that has built up [during the day] is released in the atmosphere,” explained Julien Bigorgne, an engineer at APUR (Atelier Parisien d’Urbanisme).
Via France 24