Photo: Tanjug/Strahinja AฤimoviฤIf adaptation measures to climate change are not more actively implemented in the near future, the public health of the citizens of Belgrade will face a serious threat. In recent years, there are fewer and fewer pleasant summer mornings and evenings, and more and more tropical nights. This is not only a matter of air temperature, but also of our subjective feeling. Researchers call it "thermal comfort"
Belgrade is currently facing two major challenges that call into question the quality of life in the future, writes the Klima 101 portal.
The first is that Belgrade bears the epithet of "the largest European construction site".
According to data from the Association of Architects and Urban Planners (CEUS), in the period from 2016 to 2020, the number of apartments built per year increased by 70 percent, and the number of square meters of high-rise buildings built per year increased by as much as 350 percent.
Construction is most intense in the territorially smallest, central city municipalities: in Vraฤar, Savski Venec and Stari Grad, where the existing density of construction is high, and where green areas are insufficiently represented and unevenly distributed, and vulnerability to the consequences of climate change is significant.
The central city area is markedly deficient in greenery. As stated in the Plan for the General Regulation of Belgrade's Green Area System, which was adopted in 2019, in the capital, public greenery (without forests) makes up only 2,83 percent of the total area of โโthe city, which is far below the European average.
Another challenge facing Belgrade is the change in the city's microclimate under the influence of climate change.
Researchers call it "thermal comfort", where the goal is not only to measure the air temperature, but also our subjective feeling, i.e. (dis)satisfaction with the thermal environment, which greatly affects the quality of life and public health of citizens.
What is the thermal comfort like in Belgrade
Research by domestic scientists shows that Belgrade's climate has changed significantly over the last half century.
The average annual temperature for the period from 1941 to 1990 was 11,9 degrees Celsius.
After the 1990s, and especially after the 2000s, a significant increase was noted not only in the mean daily temperature, but also in its minimum and maximum values.
Thus, in the period from 1991 to 2020, the average annual temperature was 13,2 degrees Celsius.
When we combine the temperature trends and the change in the way land is used in Belgrade (more concrete, less greenery), and we also take into account that other environmental parameters such as air humidity also change as a result of these two, as a result we get a significantly changed thermal comfort.
Different indices are used to assess thermal comfort, which combine several meteorological and physiological parameters, one of the most widely used in Europe being the Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI).
It is expressed in degrees Celsius, in which, in addition to air temperature, data such as air humidity, wind speed and solar radiation are included according to special methodologies.
When it comes to Belgrade, the UTCI index results for the period from 1991 to 2020 show not only that the value of the index is growing, but also that four of the five years with the highest annual values โโof this index were recorded in the period 2015-2020.
The increase in the value of the index means that thermal discomfort when staying outdoors is more and more frequent, both in the morning and in the evening, and of course in the midday and afternoon, especially during the summer months, when the highest values โโare recorded.
The health of the citizens of Belgrade is under threat
The most unfavorable is in July and August, where in recent years (2015-2020) an increasing number of days have been recorded when the combination of meteorological parameters and local environmental conditions result in the highest categories of thermal stress: strong, very strong and extreme heat stress that cause the strongest physiological response, and significantly drain our bodies.
In such situations, the appearance of health risks is more frequent: rash, cramps, fatigue accompanied by nausea, dizziness, sudden increase in body temperature and possibly the most serious condition, heat stroke, and even death, especially among children, the elderly and chronically ill, pregnant women and workers who perform hard physical work outdoors (such as workers in construction, energy, mining).
All this indicates that the thermal comfort in the Serbian capital will be even less favorable in the years to come, and that if adaptation measures to climate change are not implemented more actively in the near future, the public health of the citizens of Belgrade will be in serious danger.
Read the entire text at Climate 101.
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