Shifting summer holidays in Spain as an adaptation measure to climate change

This paper assesses whether moving summer holidays to the warmest period of the year in Spain could be a useful climate change adaptation strategy. While the most popular period for Spanish summer holidays has traditionally been August, we illustrate that the second half of July is the hottest perio...

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Published inThe Science of the total environment Vol. 904; p. 166879
Main Authors Garrido-Perez, Jose M., García-Herrera, Ricardo, Barriopedro, David, Ordóñez, Carlos
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Elsevier B.V 15.12.2023
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Summary:This paper assesses whether moving summer holidays to the warmest period of the year in Spain could be a useful climate change adaptation strategy. While the most popular period for Spanish summer holidays has traditionally been August, we illustrate that the second half of July is the hottest period of the year and when the negative effects of high temperatures are most pronounced. If the holiday period in the second fortnight of August was moved to the second fortnight of July, some of the associated impacts would be mitigated due to the reduced anthropogenic activity during non-working days. In particular, we find a significant reduction in the annual peak of labour productivity loss (~25 %) and, to a lesser extent, of electricity demand and near-surface ozone concentrations (~3–4 %). Finally, we also show that global warming could lead to enhanced differences between both fortnights (even with no change in the seasonal cycle of temperature) because of the non-linear relationships between temperature and its impacts. Therefore, the positive effect of shifting holidays would be even larger in the coming future. [Display omitted] •We find an asynchronism between annual maximum temperatures and summer holidays.•Matching them would reduce the annual peak of some high temperature impacts.•Larger effects on labour productivity than on electricity demand and air quality•The avoidable impacts would be larger in the future due to the global warming.•Shifting summer holidays could be an effective adaptation measure to climate change.
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ISSN:0048-9697
1879-1026
DOI:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.166879