News analysis: Italians may be forced to reconsider city planning as summers get hotter
ROME, (Xinhua) -- If heat waves in Italy continue to become more frequent and more intense, Italian cities will be forced to change the way they look at city planning, analysts said.
Before recent decades, Italy could expect to experience a major heat wave approximately once every five years, according to Italian meteorologists. Now they occur almost every summer and twice already this summer.
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"Italian cities will have to do more to adapt," Marta Pappalardo, an environmental science professor at the University of Pisa, told Xinhua, while emphasizing the need for cities to develop more green areas, plant more trees that produce shade and absorb heat, and manage water systems better.
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Despite the increased frequency and intensity of heat waves and trends that cause people to spend more time in cities, there is one positive trend: heat-related-deaths have dramatically decreased.
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