Uploaded on 2016-07-24 by Cesar de Sousa

1. On average across all 60 cities, urban summer temperatures were 2.4°F hotter than rural temperatures. This was extracted from the Climate Central website http://www.climatecentral.org/news/urban-heat-islands-threaten-us-health-17919 2. In my place of residence (Maputo, Mozambique) I could not find published data that looked into summer urban heat island effect. All I could find is average monthly temperature and rainfall as pasted below. I collected data for Maputo, the capital, Matola, satellite city in the Metro area of Maputo (rare buildings with more than three floors) and Marracuene, a town at 30 Km from Maputo in mostly rural environment. I have a photo of Maputo seaside and Marracuene. I tried to upload both, I don t know if I succeded. Matola and Marracuene average temperature tend to be higher than Maputo, so no evidence of urban heat island probably because average removes differences in temperatures between geographical areas in the cities/urban areas. I may say as anecdote that I have a friend living in an area 6 -7 km from central Maputo alongside the bay, almost 1 km inside the coastline. She says often that her place is cooler than Maputo (2 – 3 Centigrade degrees). She does not measure temperature systematically and though probably there is a meteo station registering temperature and rainfall in her area I could not get systematic data from that point and one in central Maputo to compare temperature averages Maputo http://pt.climate-data.org/location/535/ Matola http://pt.climate-data.org/location/507/ Marracuene http://pt.climate-data.org/location/47426/ 3. Maputo has reasonable amount of green areas in the planned part (old part) of the city. The new areas of housing development have lesser green areas. One measure could be lining roads, where possible, with trees and allow for green parks in new housing development. Condominiums in rich people s new developments have space for that to provide shade and places for entertainment and social interaction. Another intervention could be to have white roofs to increase the albedo effect and reduce effect of solar radiation in heating the building. It is much more difficult to articulate building residents willingness to develop green roofs. 4. There is no local policy regarding reducing any heat island effect. The need to approach it is there as during summer we often have power cuts because of excess demand on electric grid due to air conditioning. But it is a problem having residents to agree and conform to common action, particularly if that entail additional costs. Most people are short of money for their plans and macroeconomics does not ensure controlled inflation.