In Brazil’s Favelas, Green Roofs Might Help Relieve the Heat

Photo caption: Favela do Alemao in Rio de Janeiro, 2011. Low-income urban communities like these tend to lack greenery and are more likely to face extreme heat than their wealthier or more rural counterparts. Photo credit: AF Rodrigues / Brazil Photos / LightRocket via Getty Images. Article by Jill Langlois. Undark – May 22, 2023.

Sweat was dripping down Luis Cassiano’s face. It was 2012, and Rio de Janeiro’s hottest day to date: At nearly 110 degrees Fahrenheit, the seaside city had just barely beaten its previous record set in 1984. Cassiano and his mother, then 82, had lived in the same narrow four-story house since they moved to Parque Arará, a favela in northern Rio, some 20 years earlier. Like many other homes in the working-class community — one of more than 1,000 favelas in the Brazilian city of over 6.77 million — its roof is made of asbestos tiles. […]

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