A new report has urged Australia to follow the Spanish city of Seville and start naming its heatwaves as part of measures to help communities cope with the rising risks from extreme temperatures.
According to the report, naming heatwaves could be part of enabling a “heat culture” where communities prepare for extreme temperature events in the same way they plan for the arrival of named cyclones.
Rob McLeod, who is the policy manager at Australian nonprofit organisation Renew and the report author travelled to Spain to investigate how cities are coping with the rising risks from heatwaves.
Seville, in the country’s south, began naming heatwaves in 2022 as a way to increase public awareness of the risks from high temperatures, he found. Between June and August 2023, Seville named four heatwaves – Yago, Xenia, Wenceslao and Vera.
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McLeod said: “They were hitting temperatures above 45C for at least three days. Naming heatwaves is about letting people know that this is a serious issue.”
He said Spanish cities were developing a “heat culture” where people understood the steps they needed to take to prepare for heatwaves, such as cooling their homes early in the morning and then using shading, doing outdoor tasks outside the hottest parts of the day, staying hydrated and checking on vulnerable community members.
Naming heatwaves also created accountability around the actions that communities and government agencies needed to take to protect the public at a time when global heating was increasing the threat, McLeod said.
City planners in Spain were also working to reduce the urban heat island effect – a phenomenon where impermeable hard surfaces like concrete and brick can store and reflect heat, exacerbating temperature extremes.
Story was adapted from the Guardian.
