Press & Media Kit
For journalists and newsrooms
Everything you need to cover this story, in one place.
Quick embed
Drop this into any CMS to embed the interactive explorer:
<iframe src="https://treejectory.pages.dev/embeds/lst-carousel.html"
width="100%" height="700"
frameborder="0"
style="border-radius:8px">
</iframe>Download assets
High-resolution map stills (PNG) — Print-ready, uncompressed. 21 city LST maps + bivariate inequality maps + canopy deficit maps. Download ZIP →
Web-optimised images (WebP) — Compressed for online use. Same set, smaller files. Download ZIP →
Headline statistics (CSV) — One row per city: % below threshold, mean canopy, mean LST, population affected, income-heat correlation. Download CSV →
Key findings at a glance
| City | Country | % dwellings below 30% canopy | Mean canopy within 60m | Mean LST (heatwave) | Population in hot+poor areas |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Paris | France | 99.1% | 7.4% | 29.7°C | 153,000 (7.1%) |
| Lyon | France | 95.3% | 12.0% | 40.7°C | 50,000 (10.1%) |
| Marseille | France | 97.8% | 8.5% | 43.8°C | 173,000 (21.3%) |
| Toulouse | France | 98.4% | 8.7% | 44.1°C | 46,000 (11.4%) |
| Nice | France | 93.3% | 14.8% | 42.4°C | 131,000 (36.7%) |
Full 21-city table available in the CSV download.
Quotes attributable
Attributable to Dr Thami Croeser, academic urban planner at RMIT Centre for Urban Research
Human impact
“We are looking at an acute, structural failure of urban design that leaves millions of people completely unprotected in their own homes. The data shows that 99% of dwellings in a great city like Paris or Madrid simply do not have the bare minimum shade required to survive a modern heatwave safely. When a severe heatwave hits, a lush park three blocks away is mathematically useless to an apartment building surrounded by baking tarmac.”
There is a serious equity aspect to this problem
“Heat waves do not discriminate, but our urban infrastructure absolutely does. In every single one of the 21 European cities I mapped, the data reveals a brutal trend: poorer neighborhoods are consistently stripped of canopy cover and exposed to the highest temperatures. Urban shade has effectively become a luxury commodity, and it is costing public health.”
Shade needs to be close to home to keep you safe
“We mapped 3.8 million buildings at a hyper-local 60-meter radius because that is the critical zone where trees actually protect human health. City-wide canopy averages are a statistical lie used by local governments to hide a dangerous deficit. If you don’t have a tree canopy within 60 meters of your doorstep, the cooling effect is practically negligible.”
A generational issue
“The brutal reality of urban forestry is that a tree planted today won’t shade a building for twenty years. The catastrophic heatwaves crushing Europe right now were locked in when trees were not planted adequately a generation ago. Every single mature street tree we cut down or fail to maintain right now is completely irreplaceable on any timeline that matters to human survival.”
What we can do about it
“If we want to stop our cities from becoming dangerous heat traps, urban planners have to clear three basic hurdles: trees must be planted close to where people actually live, they must be given the soil volume and water they need to thrive instead of being choked in asphalt pits, and we must legally protect the mature canopies we already have. Right now, most major cities are failing all three.”
It’s not a space or density problem
“For years, the excuse has been that we can’t have trees because our cities need to be dense, and there isn’t space for trees. My findings completely shatter that myth. When you compare neighborhoods with the exact same urban density, the areas that kept their mature trees are up to 10 degrees cooler than the hotspots next door. Density isn’t the killer here — concrete prioritization is.”
Suggested caption
“Percentage of tree canopy within 60 metres of every building in [City], mapped at 1-metre resolution. Red = below the 30% threshold scientists link to effective cooling. Green = meets threshold. Source: Unpublished analysis by Dr Thami Croeser using Meta/WRI canopy data (2020) and IGN BD TOPO building footprints (2024).”
Media contact
Dr Thami Croeser Urban forest researcher thami.croeser@gmail.com | [Phone — PLACEHOLDER] Available 14:30–18:30 AEST / 06:30–10:30 CEST on launch day.
Academic reference
Croeser, T., Rahman, M. & Ghosh, A. (2026). Urban forestry for cooler cities faces three critical hurdles. Nature Communications. [DOI pending]
Unpublished analysis by Dr Thami Croeser, June 2026.