Liu Xue, Hao Ming, Zhou Yuyu, Zhang Yue, Xu Ziheng, Liu Xiaojuan, Gao Yukun, Li Rui, Zhang Han, Li Xia, Liu Xiaoping, Yao Yuanzhi
School of Geographic Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China.
Department of Geography, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China.
Environ Health Perspect. 2025 Jun;133(6):67011. doi: 10.1289/EHP15010. Epub 2025 Jun 13.
Physiological heat strain induced by extreme temperatures in cities has led to significant heat-related deaths. Although socioeconomic adaptation is suggested to mitigate this issue, its effectiveness is limited. Conversely, there is a lack of comprehensive evaluation on the effectiveness of landscape-level strategies for mitigating heat-related deaths.
We developed a comprehensive modeling framework to estimate the impacts of environmental stresses and mitigating strategies on heat-related deaths in China's cities from 2016 to 2055.
The framework assesses future heat-related deaths through five experiments considering the influences of climate change, urbanization, socioeconomic adaptation, and landscape-level strategies. We used extrapolated region-specific exposure-response functions (ERF) and recent advancement of geo-statistics for public health to generate urban patch level ERF curves. We used these curves and temperature and population data to generate future heat-related deaths with a resolution and conducted 5,000 Monte Carlo simulations for uncertainty analysis.
Our analyses estimated that heat-related mortality will increase from deaths per million in 2016 to deaths per million in 2055 under SSP2-RCP4.5 (shared socioeconomic pathways-representative concentration pathways) scenario and from deaths per million to deaths per million under SSP5-RCP8.5 scenario, despite socioeconomic adaptation and landscape-level strategies. Socioeconomic adaptation (reducing deaths by ) and landscape-level strategies (reducing deaths by ) significantly mitigate heat-related deaths with varying effectiveness across different income levels. Specifically, in high-income cities with dense populations, landscape-level strategies are 2.2-4.3 times more effective than socioeconomic adaptation. Within these cities, implementing the same landscape-level strategies in the high-density urban centers led to an additional reduction up to in comparison with surrounding areas.
Our framework helps to systematically understand the effectiveness of landscape-level strategies in reducing heat-related mortality. Future sustainable city management should prioritize landscape-level strategies along with socioeconomic adaptation to support healthy and comfortable communities. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP15010.
城市极端温度引发的生理热应激已导致大量与热相关的死亡。尽管建议通过社会经济适应来缓解这一问题，但其效果有限。相反，对于景观层面缓解与热相关死亡策略的有效性缺乏全面评估。
我们开发了一个综合建模框架，以估计2016年至2055年中国城市环境压力和缓解策略对与热相关死亡的影响。
该框架通过五项实验评估未来与热相关的死亡情况，考虑了气候变化、城市化、社会经济适应和景观层面策略的影响。我们使用外推的特定区域暴露-反应函数（ERF）以及公共卫生领域地理统计学的最新进展来生成城市斑块层面的ERF曲线。我们使用这些曲线以及温度和人口数据以一定分辨率生成未来与热相关的死亡情况，并进行了5000次蒙特卡洛模拟以进行不确定性分析。
我们的分析估计，在SSP2-RCP4.5（共享社会经济路径-代表性浓度路径）情景下，与热相关的死亡率将从2016年的每百万 人死亡增加到2055年的每百万 人死亡，在SSP5-RCP8.5情景下将从每百万 人死亡增加到每百万 人死亡，尽管有社会经济适应和景观层面策略。社会经济适应（减少 人死亡）和景观层面策略（减少 人死亡）显著缓解了与热相关的死亡，不同收入水平下效果各异。具体而言，在人口密集的高收入城市，景观层面策略的效果比社会经济适应高2.2至4.3倍。在这些城市中，与周边地区相比，在高密度城市中心实施相同的景观层面策略可额外减少高达 的死亡人数。
我们的框架有助于系统地理解景观层面策略在降低与热相关死亡率方面的有效性。未来可持续城市管理应将景观层面策略与社会经济适应置于优先地位，以支持健康舒适的社区。https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP15010。
