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The year progresses and the terrestrial inclination makes the sun's rays to produce more and more heat in our northern tropical countries. We live in hot cities because we are in the middle of the intertropical zone, in the case where we live, we are in the Tropic of Cancer at ten and a half degrees from the Equator.
Our temperatures, our thermal sensation, exceed thirty degrees most of the year, because we have high solar radiation and humidity coming from the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. We should consider lowering the temperature to a less stressful one. In addition, the concept of "Heat Island" is established, because the ecosystem of the city (cities are ecosystems), is warmer than the surrounding ecosystems. We must act by homologating the weather and climate with those ecosystems that surround cities.
From our environmental groups NATURAZUL (Beatriz Nava Rincón), Ecosistema Revolucionario (Aarón Montiel Urdaneta) and Amigos del Bosque (Elio Ríos Serrano), we had meetings to make a proposal with the intervention of the roads, which will serve our hottest cities to make the climate more pleasant and to activate mobility in the city, walking or cycling..
A set of actions on public roads, in every street, in every avenue can help lower the temperature of the city. In addition to the integral benefits (psychological, respiratory, cardiovascular and musculoskeletal), we would reduce the use of motor vehicles and with this, the pollution produced by these technological units.
We call the project Integrated Water Misting, Arborization (arborization for tree planting, counter arborization for tree planting) and Landscaping. We simplify in an acronym NIAGARA. We go on to expose.
The Integral Water Fogging (NIAG) is proposed because the sun's energy is transmitted to the exterior as solar radiation, the water droplets absorb the heat of solar radiation. Therefore, if we nebulize water in the areas planted with trees in the streets and avenues of different sectors of the city periodically, the nebulized water will absorb an amount of heat.
Water misting should be used to provide water in community forests, green areas, gardens, squares, all in the road axes, islands and sidewalk planting area, in fountains (with treatment for mosquito control), fulfilling the function of hydrating the vegetation, we mist. Also, additionally, water could be fogged from high buildings, in the downtown and commercial area..
Before moving on to the second aspect, we clarify again, because we were once corrected by a girl in a planting activity, she told us that we had to learn to speak, that it was said arborization because we planted trees, not arbores to say arborization. Since then, we decided to use the word Arbolización (AR)..
The heat load of the earth's surface is given by the amount of the sun's rays and the time it receives them, especially the near-infrared rays. The energy of these solar radiations heats everything it touches. That is why we propose to reduce the radiation reaching the surface of the cities, placing a roof with high albedo to infrared rays.
The idea of making a green roof comes from taking care of the existing trees and planting more green trees (meaning that their leaves have green chlorophyll). Green chlorophyll has the ability to reflect near infrared rays back into the atmosphere. The albedo is the ability of a surface to reflect a ray of sunlight. It is calculated as a percentage ratio of the amount of reflected rays to the amount of incident rays.
Another way to evaluate albedo in a simple way is to say that the albedo spectrum goes from zero to one, zero reflects none of the radiation and one reflects all of it. Green chlorophyll has a high albedo for infrared rays, very close to one, under a tree the ground or people are less warm than when exposed to the sun, it is cooler.
For this aspect of the proposal, Arborization (AR), we must adopt again the culture of planting trees, on sidewalks and avenues, to be able to move around walking within the city, a tree at least every ten meters of sidewalk or avenue. Every family, every home, every company should be responsible for their trees on the sidewalk or avenue.
The avenues that are made of asphalt have a low albedo to solar radiation, therefore, close to zero, they are warmer than the sidewalk and the ground. The formation of vegetation tunnels with the foliage of the trees on each side of the sidewalks and/or the island of the avenue, decreases the heat of the road. At night, the road functions as a heat source, warming the community; this decreases if it is covered by a vegetation tunnel.
Vegetated tunnels have an additional advantage: they reduce the use of air conditioning in the vehicle, consuming less fuel and offering less smoke. They also reduce the heat with the development of community forests adjacent to public roads. Community forests are spaces, green areas, land, which are destined for tree plantations in the communities. Families and their community organizations are responsible for the care and maintenance of these community forests.
All these spaces of vegetal shadows with high albedo to infrared rays, become a real air conditioner, because they have less temperature. The spaces with a higher temperature of the community, the energy flows towards the lower gradient, they yield their energy to the wooded areas, "cooling" continuously.
Some institutional proposals also serve as a reference to understand the project's contribution in terms of vegetation cover. The World Health Organization (WHO) proposes ten to fifteen square meters of tree-covered spaces per inhabitant of the city. Curitiba, Brazil, could be the "Gold Standard", as it has fifty square meters of tree-covered area per inhabitant..
We have cities that count their trees and are proud of it, as in the case of Madrid, which boasts three hundred thousand trees in five thousand green areas and avenues. This vegetation on the roads compensates and/or helps the vegetation cover of the ecosystems of cities (remember that cities are ecosystems)..
The Environmental Education aspect of any project cannot be overlooked. This is achieved through Ambientation (A). Although conceptually it is to place and distribute decoration, this concept can be used to introduce and distribute elements for Environmental Education. We have a goal of forming environmental communities, families and individuals..
As a reference we have the planning of the Scout Association of Venezuela that had a goal for the nineties of the twentieth century to train as a scout one person for every five inhabitants. That meant, a scout in every family in order to establish the scout culture..
Nothing more pragmatic than the murals to be developed on the walls of public roads, with clear messages of environmental education, promoting the biota of the region, the love of vegetation, life, sustainability, to be environmentalist. With pleasant drawings and colors, that give the message, fight against visual pollution of the city and have iconic value..
Together, Integral Water Fogging, Tree Planting and Environmentalization, through the NIAGARA project, offers us an opportunity to be environmentalists in the fight against the heat island, against pollution, against the high temperatures of tropical cities, and against the lack of environmental education..
A good initiative that I think should be sponsored by an institution, a non-governmental organization, to help you with your project.
It is very important that we have spaces where we can enjoy ourselves if we have to worry about excess heat, and on the other hand, this tree-planting project humanizes the environment by making our spaces more pleasant places to live and enjoy.
I see it as a very positive idea that is going to improve the environment and I don't think it takes a lot of work to encourage a person to plant a tree, the difficult part is organizing people and scheduling tree planting quite frequently, but I think that with the sponsorship of the NGO or private company it can be easily achieved.
Excellent Project, global warming will turn into deadly cooling in the future, some scientists say. Trees not only provide shade and cool the environment but also produce oxygen and absorb CO2, besides being home to birds and insects that at the same time help the reproduction of other plant species. The concrete and concrete jungles should be accompanied by other trees and vegetables, botanical gardens that remind us that nature is our mother. @tipu curate 3
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Hello dear friend, I think it is a great project, I think that many cities and even many countries would benefit from something like this, I think that many people die from heat waves and the truth is that nobody does anything about it. It would be a great advance. Thanks for sharing it. Greetings!