On Thursday, City officials were joined by the U.S. Assistant Secretary for Health, Admiral Rachel Levine, MD, who visited Albuquerque to highlight the stories of cities experiencing the impacts of climate change and resulting public health implications for frontline communities.
While in Albuquerque, Admiral Levine learned about Albuquerque’s work to mitigate rising urban heat, its disproportionate impacts on vulnerable residents, and how federal, community, and local partners can work to create change.
Albuquerque’s frontline communities, located in the hottest urban heat island areas, are most at risk to the negative health impacts of heat, as documented in the City’s 2021 Heat Watch Campaign report.
Mayor Tim Keller echoed this development. “When we look at our heat islands using the heat mapping inventory that we’re doing with our environmental health department that’s here today and our parks team, we see the loss of our tree canopy and we see temperatures that are 5 to 10 degrees high than they were before, because of the loss of the tree canopy.”
Admiral Levine learned about local heat mitigation initiatives during a multi-site tour that started at the City of Albuquerque’s Emergency Operations Center, followed by Tingley Beach in the Bosque, Wilson Middle School’s community garden project, and the Rio Grande Valley State Park.
These locations showcase green spaces, community gardens, and heat mitigation projects.
The City of Albuquerque also announced a new collaboration with NASA’s DEVELOP program to further develop heat-related modeling to assist in strategic tree canopy development, to take place this summer. DEVELOP addresses environmental and public policy issues through interdisciplinary research projects that apply NASA Earth observations.