Green spaces in African cities can reduce heat, produce healthy food

Olumuyiwa Adegun, a senior lecturer in the Department of Architecture at the Federal University of Technology Akure in Nigeria, writes about how vertical farming can help vulnerable urban settlements.

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A recent study shows that people in poorer neighbourhoods experience higher heat exposure than those in more affluent areas. 

Green spaces have the potential to reduce heat in urban areas and, in turn, improve the health of the inhabitants.

Indoor vertical gardens can reduce the temperature of the room in which they are contained.

Persistently high temperatures and related heat stress are a big problem for people living in cities, especially in slums and informal settlements. And it's a problem that is expected to continue.

According to the latest Intergovernmental Panel in Climate Change assessment report, heat exposure in Africa is projected to increase in terms of person-days. That is, the annual number of days when the temperature is over 40,6°C multiplied by the number of people exposed.

Heat exposure will reach 45 billion person-days by the 2060s, over three times the rate between 1985 and 2005. This will make sub-Saharan Africa's exposure to dangerous heat one of the highest globally.

Heat-exposure challenges are increased by a shortage of basic services and infrastructure, along with low-quality housing, poor socioeconomic conditions, and few green spaces in slums and informal settlements.

Our recent study in Akure, Nigeria, showed that poor residents in informal neighbourhoods experienced higher heat exposure compared with residents in rich neighbourhoods. Through a survey of 70 residents in each neighbourhood, we found that poorer households in low-income neighbourhoods were more disadvantaged and had lower capacity to adapt to heat.