LAWN. Extreme heat and equally extreme climate change. Prato, in 2023, was the fourth hottest city, or rather affected by long periods of extreme heat, in all of Italy. And from here, bringing up the rear, in 106th place out of 108 cities, for environmental and climatic liveability conditions.
A negative record due to a set of factors associated with each other; from global climate changes, to the morphological factor of the territory, to the concreting and covering of the soil, asphalting up to the refraction of thermal values from the covered soil. In short, lack of mitigating factors and growth of climate change factors. An explosive mixer, one might say. Confirming that the city is among those caught in the grip of extreme climatic characteristics, and the heat beyond all parameters that makes us welcome the temperate climate, is the publication of the 2023 liveability index drawn up by Corriere della Sera in collaboration with the website il Meteo.it.
Over 380 million data collected and processed in twenty years of climate analyses. Prato is certainly not in an optimal ranking; in 2023, after Florence, Caltanissetta and the area of southern Sardinia, it is the city that experienced 28 days with an extreme summer temperature, which means above 35 degrees centigrade up to 40.5 degrees. The stagnation of fiery temperatures and the absence of winds, typical of the flat areas of the hinterland, played and plays a determining factor, including the smog and polluting factors of an area with a high intensity of work and industrial mobility. And not only. This also gives rise to the continuous continuation of “tropical nights”, when the temperature a year ago never fell below 22 degrees centigrade for many nights. As many as 71 nights with temperatures around 30 degrees centigrade and sultriness that left everyone sleepless, with strong consequences also for people’s health. Between 2009 and 2011, the city and the territory of Prato were even placed in third position, out of all Italian cities, for highly intense heat waves. The report on the livability index shows even more worrying data: surpassing Milan, Prato has been the first Italian city for extreme climatic events in absolute values for 22 years, with the exception of just one year, including floods, heat waves, water bombs . It is, however, in the same category positioned in fortieth place in 2023.
Another negative fact, the latter, for which and on which it seems absolutely necessary to do everything to mitigate the effects of a climate and an environment that are making the city with a worrying climate liveability index. Eleventh city in Italy, among all 108 provincial capitals, for heat waves, Prato was among the top twenty cities in the entire peninsula for intensity of rainfall and calamitous events throughout last year. Again a record that follows the effects of profound climate change across the entire area of the province. With an extreme heat index of 51 days, Prato in 2023 ranks among the worst cities in Italy in terms of environmental liveability values. In other words: in the face of those who still believe that climate change is just an extemporaneous mental rumination.
