Comparing temperature-related mortality impacts of cool roofs in winter and summer in a highly urbanized European region for present and future climate

Helen Macintyre*, Clare Heaviside, Xiaoming Cai, Revati Phalkey

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

28 Citations (Scopus)
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Abstract

Human health can be negatively impacted by hot or cold weather, which often exacerbates respiratory or cardiovascular conditions and increases the risk of mortality. Urban populations are at particular increased risk of effects from heat due to the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect (higher urban temperatures compared with rural ones). This has led to extensive investigation of the summertime UHI, its impacts on health, and also the consideration of interventions such as reflective ‘cool’ roofs to help reduce summertime overheating effects. However, interventions aimed at limiting summer heat are rarely evaluated for their effects in wintertime, and thus their overall annual net impact on temperature-related health effects are poorly understood. In this study we use a regional weather model to simulate the winter 2009/10 period for an urbanized region of the UK (Birmingham and the West Midlands), and use a health impact assessment to estimate the impact of reflective ‘cool’ roofs (an intervention usually aimed at reducing the UHI in summer) on cold-related mortality in winter. Cool roofs have been shown to be effective at reducing maximum temperatures during summertime. In contrast to the summer, we find that cool roofs have a minimal effect on ambient air temperatures in winter. Although the UHI in summertime can increase heat-related mortality, the wintertime UHI can have benefits to health, through avoided cold-related mortality. Our results highlight the potential annual net health benefits of implementing cool roofs to reduce temperature-related mortality in summer, without reducing the protective UHI effect in winter. Further, we suggest that benefits of cool roofs may increase in future, with a doubling of the number of heat-related deaths avoided by the 2080s (RCP8.5) compared to summer 2006, and with insignificant changes in the impact of cool-roofs on cold-related mortality. These results further support reflective ‘cool’ roof implementation strategies as effective interventions to protect health, both today and in future.

Original languageEnglish
Article number106606
JournalEnvironment International
Volume154
Early online date7 May 2021
DOIs
Publication statusE-pub ahead of print - 7 May 2021

Bibliographical note

Funding Information: The research was funded by the National Institute for Health Research Health Protection Research Unit (NIHR HPRU) in Environmental Change and Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in partnership with Public Health England (PHE), and in collaboration with the University of Exeter, University College London, and the Met Office. The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR, the Department of Health or Public Health England. We also acknowledge data access provided by ONS and the Open Government Licence for UKCP18 data, and the Centre for Environmental Data Analysis (CEDA) web portal used to access MIDAS data. CH is supported by a NERC fellowship (NE/R01440X/1) and acknowledges funding for the HEROIC project (216035/Z/19/Z) from the Wellcome Trust.

Open Access: This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Publisher Copyright:© 2021 The Authors

Citation: Macintyre, Helen L., et al. "Comparing temperature-related mortality impacts of cool roofs in winter and summer in a highly urbanized European region for present and future climate." Environment international 154 (2021): 106606.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2021.106606

Keywords

  • Adaptation and mitigation
  • Climate change
  • Cool roofs
  • Temperature exposure
  • Urban health
  • WRF

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