Economic valuation of temperature-related mortality attributed to urban heat islands in European cities

Wan Ting Katty Huang, Pierre Masselot, Elie Bou-Zeid, Simone Fatichi, Athanasios Paschalis, Ting Sun, Antonio Gasparrini and Gabriele Manoli ()
Additional contact information
Wan Ting Katty Huang: University College London
Pierre Masselot: London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
Elie Bou-Zeid: Princeton University
Simone Fatichi: National University of Singapore
Athanasios Paschalis: Imperial College London
Ting Sun: University College London
Antonio Gasparrini: London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
Gabriele Manoli: University College London

Nature Communications, 2023, vol. 14, issue 1, 1-12

Abstract: Abstract As the climate warms, increasing heat-related health risks are expected, and can be exacerbated by the urban heat island (UHI) effect. UHIs can also offer protection against cold weather, but a clear quantification of their impacts on human health across diverse cities and seasons is still being explored. Here we provide a 500 m resolution assessment of mortality risks associated with UHIs for 85 European cities in 2015-2017. Acute impacts are found during heat extremes, with a 45% median increase in mortality risk associated with UHI, compared to a 7% decrease during cold extremes. However, protracted cold seasons result in greater integrated protective effects. On average, UHI-induced heat-/cold-related mortality is associated with economic impacts of €192/€ − 314 per adult urban inhabitant per year in Europe, comparable to air pollution and transit costs. These findings urge strategies aimed at designing healthier cities to consider the seasonality of UHI impacts, and to account for social costs, their controlling factors, and intra-urban variability.

Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-43135-z Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:14:y:2023:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-023-43135-z

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-43135-z

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().