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Crumbled Tyres Could Combat Heat Island Effect

Posted: 11/10/2006

Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone has compared the capital to a storage heater that sucks up heat during the day and releases it at night. During heat waves this means people do not get a chance to cool down at night and also poses a serious health risk and a noticeable spike in death rates among the elderly and infants.

Crumbled rubber and recycled aggregates used to produce pavements that help reduce heat absorption are one idea to stop temperatures going through the roof in city summers. There is a phenomenon known as the heat island effect where urban areas are commonly up to 5 degrees warmer than surrounding countryside during hot weather.

But research funded by the Greater London Authority which sought to monitor the problem and suggest possible solutions found that at the peak of the 2003 summer heatwave the temperature in the city centre was a staggering nine degree celsius higher than in the rural greenbelt outside the capital.

Mr Livingstone said that although there was no quick fix for this problem, action needed to be taken now to reduce the future impact of the problem as the effects of climate change intensify and that there was a particular urgency as previous climate change models had assumed the UK was essentially rural and had failed to take into account the additional warming effect experienced by cities.

Recommendations made by the research team - made up of academics from a number of universities as well as professional environmental consultants - included an extensive tree planting programme, the promotion of 'green roofs' and paving that could help to cool the city rather than turn it into an oven.

Alex Nickson, a policy officer for the Greater London Authority, said that new pavements made from alternative materials could have substantial environmental benefits as well as boosting the market for recycled materials. Crumbled rubber and building aggregate not only provide a use for recycled materials but also reflects the heat rather than absorbing it as traditional materials do. It is also more permeable which means less run off when it rains, helping to conserve water.

Construction giant ARUP have been doing some modelling on the causes of the urban heat island and looked at some of the aspects of climate change while King's College, Londonhas been looking more generally at the nature of heat islands and at who might be vulnerable in terms of health impacts. Brunel University and the University of Arizona have been mapping urban heat islands with a mixture of traditional observations and satellite imagery and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine has been looking at the health factors.

The research will be used to shape policy in a number of areas, Livingstone said, and is an important first step in understanding the relationship between London's microclimate, development and perdicted changes to our climate.

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