Subscribe to our social channels to get the latest news about Hungary!
Is Budapest likely to become a deadly place?
Change language:
The stronger and longer heat flows, shaking Europe more and frequently, are the results of the global climate change. The situation is going to get worse in the future. In Hungary, there are three levels of the heat alerts, but in the past few years exceeding the limits of these levels has occurred several times – we may need to extend them in the future.
It is only about sweating a bit more. The consistently high temperature literally causes life danger – in 2015, 1800 people died because of the extreme heat. Cooling our body forces our body to work in a tense pace – especially the heart.
In the cities, it is the worst. The extreme heatwaves become severe threats in the cities where there is a lot of concrete, and the dark interfaces increase heat to a great extent and stop the air from cooling down. In other, more appropriate words:
In the cities, the buildings have radiative heat dissipation. The generated micro-climate makes cities a sort of “heat islands”, and in this environment, health is drastically affected.
– says Dóra Szagri, PhD student of BME (Department of Construction Materials and Technologies). E.g. the surface covered by plants in parks is 12-14°C (53.6-57.2°F) cooler, even between houses, than any surface covered by concrete. The regional climate model of Hungary predicts an average 3-4°C (37.4-39.2°F) increase by the end of the century.
The “heat island effect” of big cities can contribute to mortality of heat by 50%.
The heat must be excluded. It is obvious the something has to be done; this is what the research group of Climate Change and Building Energetics (from the same department) is working on with the contribution of Dóra Szagri. They have two goals: they want to decrease the heat generation of buildings by constructional solutions and to make society conscious about the issue.
Creating a sensitivity map of the country is the next step that can be helped by the building stock and anonym surveys of the habits of the inhabitants. Anyone can contribute to the success of this project by taking these particular anonym surveys.
