Climate change, heat, and mortality in the tropical urban area of San Juan, Puerto Rico

Méndez‐Lázaro, Pablo; Pérez-Cardona, Cynthia M.; Rodríguez, Ernesto; Martínez, Odalys; Taboas, Mariela; Bocanegra, Arelis; Méndez‐Tejeda, Rafael

doi:10.1007/s00484-016-1291-z

Cited by 70 publications

(48 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…The most frequently mentioned disservices were maintenance hardship, property damage, and power line obstruction. The recognition of shade and temperature regulation is not surprising given the tropical environment of San Juan, which has been shown to exhibit a strong urban heat island effect [105] and temperatures and extreme heat episodes have been on the rise for the past 40 years as a result of climate change [106,107]. Awareness of shade is consistent with previous temperate city studies of residents ranking shade along with aesthetic value (i.e., ornamental, beauty) as the most important services of urban trees [49,51,52,58,63,65], in addition to oxygen supply in Morelia Mexico, [53] and fruit provision in South Africa [56].…”

Section: Awareness Of Ecosystem Services and Disservicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attitudes toward Residential Trees and Awareness of Tree Services and Disservices in a Tropical City

et al. 2019

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Attitudes toward urban residential trees and awareness of their ecosystem services and disservices may play an important role in management decisions of private residential green spaces with important consequences to urban sustainability. In 2011, 397 household surveys were conducted in six locations of the Río Piedras Watershed (San Juan, Puerto Rico) to evaluate residents' attitudes toward residential and neighborhood trees and their association with household socio-demographic factors, how awareness of services and disservices relate to the spatial proximity of trees (home versus neighborhood), and whether attitudes are associated with yard management (tree abundance). Most residents self-reported positive attitudes toward trees in general and these appeared to be more frequent than self-reported negative attitudes. Respondents recognized more tree services (emphasizing shade, lower temperature, food, and ornamental/aesthetics) and fewer disservices (emphasizing maintenance hardship, property damage, and power line obstruction). Not all tree services and disservices were equally recognized, and differences in the spatial context of trees and residents may contribute to the variation in residents' awareness of tree ecosystem services or disservices. Variation in positive attitudes partially explained the current variation in yard tree abundance, along with residents' age, housing tenure, yard size, and watershed location. Results have direct implications for urban forest planning and management in residential contexts.Sustainability 2020, 12, 117 2 of 21 feature of green infrastructure and urban forestry management strategies are incorporated into green infrastructure planning due to the commonality of the two approaches [9]. It is generally accepted that these green networks, and trees specifically, can provide a variety of ecosystem services that directly or indirectly impact human well-being in urban socio-ecological systems [10,11]. On the other hand, green spaces may inadvertently cause perceived or realized disservices that may affect human well-being (i.e., structural damage to private or public infrastructure, sources of pollen allergens) [12] if not planned adequately. Managing for ecosystem disservices may facilitate the optimization of outcomes for well-being rather than just managing ecosystem services alone [13]. One possibility is that the interplay between perceived services and disservices of green infrastructure within urban spaces could also be influencing management decisions about these spaces and changing them over time [13][14][15]. If so, urban planning with sustainability as a goal must address the links between human attitudes and behaviors toward green spaces and how these factors may influence the planning, development, and management of urban green infrastructure [16][17][18][19].Residential green infrastructure has earned visibility as an important component of urban landscapes for its potential to provide multiple ecosystem services. Green infrastructure in the form of residential ...

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Section: Awareness Of Ecosystem Services and Disservicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attitudes toward Residential Trees and Awareness of Tree Services and Disservices in a Tropical City

et al. 2019

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“…Intense HI could develop extreme HW events with a high impact on human health [27,31,35,64,65] as well as in energy demand for air conditioning systems [66]. An early warning system is relevant to mitigate possible heat strokes' impact on the population's health.…”

Section: Current Iar Climatologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These heat waves' increase could cause heat-related illness intensification with more frequent heat exhaustion and even heat stroke [34,35,64,65,67,68]. A high population mortality could be recurrent in the future, primarily in elderly populations and people with preexisting medical conditions and without air conditioning systems.…”

Section: Heat Waves Projection Using General Circulation Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…One of the few cases studied is the two hottest summers registered in the Island of Puerto Rico (2012 and 2013). In these events, a strong surface high-pressure system was located in the Northeast Atlantic Ocean causing high mortality related to high air temperature and heat stroke [34,35]. In addition, heat index vulnerability was developed for San Juan Bay estuary in Puerto Rico, where high vulnerability areas correspond to urban zones with a high concentration of elderly and unemployed populations [36].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Projections of Heat Waves Events in the Intra-Americas Region Using Multimodel Ensemble

Angeles-Malaspina

González-Cruz

Ramirez-Beltran

2018

Advances in Meteorology

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Significant accelerated warming of the Sea Surface Temperature of 0.15 ∘ C per decade was recently detected, which motivated the research for the present consequences and future projections on the heat index and heat waves in the intra-Americas region. Present records every six hours are retrieved from NCEP reanalysis to calculate heat waves changes. Heat index intensification has been detected in the region since 1998 and driven by surface pressure changes, sinking air enhancement, and warm/weaker cold advection. This regional warmer atmosphere leads to heat waves intensification with changes in both frequency and maximum amplitude distribution. Future projections using a multimodel ensemble mean for five global circulation models were used to project heat waves in the future under two scenarios: RCP4.5 and RCP8.5. Massive heat waves events were projected at the end of the 21st century, particularly in the RCP8.5 scenario. Consequently, the regional climate change in the current time and in the future will require special attention to mitigate the more intense and frequent heat waves impacts on human health, countries' economies, and energy demands in the IAR.

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“…In the 2003 European heatwave 14,000 people died in Paris alone -almost all in free-running buildings [5]. As the predictions of climate change are for a much warmer world [6], with longer, more intense and more frequent heatwaves [7][8][9], there is a growing risk of heat-related morbidity and mortality [10][11][12] and a need to ensure resilient buildings.…”

Section: A C C E P T E D Accepted Manuscriptmentioning

confidence: 99%

Probabilistic adaptive thermal comfort for resilient design

Coley

Herrera

Fosas

et al. 2017

Building and Environment

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Adaptive thermal comfort theory has become the bedrock of much thinking about how to judge if a free-running environment is suitable for human occupation. In design work, the conditions predicted by a thermal model, when the model is presented with one possible annual weather time series (a reference year), are compared to the limits of human comfort. If the temperatures are within the comfort limits, the building is judged to be suitable. However, the weather in many locations can vary year-on-year by a considerable margin, and this begs the question, how robust are the predictions of adaptive comfort theory likely to be over the many years a building might be in use? We answer this question using weather data recorded for up to 30 years for locations within each of the five major Köppen climate classifications.We find that the variation in the annual time series is so great that the predicted comfort temperature frequently lies outside the acceptable range given by the reference year. Return periods for the excursions of the time series are calculated for each location. The results for one location are then validated using the world's longest temperature record. These results suggest that industry and academia would be best advised to move to a probabilistic methodology, like the proposed one, when using adaptive comfort theory to judge the likely conditions within a building. Extra pertinence is provided by concerns over increases in mortality and morbidity in buildings due to a rapidly warming climate. • A new probabilistic adaptive comfort theory introduced.• New comfort equations for resilient building design presented.

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Climate change, heat, and mortality in the tropical urban area of San Juan, Puerto Rico

Cited by 70 publications

References 28 publications

Attitudes toward Residential Trees and Awareness of Tree Services and Disservices in a Tropical City

Attitudes toward Residential Trees and Awareness of Tree Services and Disservices in a Tropical City

Projections of Heat Waves Events in the Intra-Americas Region Using Multimodel Ensemble

Probabilistic adaptive thermal comfort for resilient design

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