Abstract
Rapid urbanization leads to the reduction of urban greenspaces, affecting the urban thermal environment and exacerbating the urban heat island effect. As urban forests are effective contributors to mitigating the urban heat island effect, understanding the composition of urban forests is important for assessing cooling effects. In response to growing concerns about the urban heat island effect, recent studies have used satellite imagery to investigate the cooling effects of urban forests’ characteristics, as remotely sensed data are flexible in spatial and temporal resolutions. This study determined the spatial patterns of land surface temperatures and tree stand compositions, as well as examined the cooling effects of different tree stand compositions at the UBC Vancouver campus during the 2021 Western North America Heat Wave. This study was done by retrieving land surface temperatures from Landsat 8 images and using grid-based analysis to classify tree stand composition in the following classification schemes: coniferous, deciduous, and mixed wood. A linear mixed effects model was also conducted to quantify the relationship between land surface temperature differences and tree stand compositions throughout the Heat Wave. The results showed that coniferous stand composition was positively correlated, but deciduous stand composition was negatively correlated with land surface temperature differences. The findings indicated that expanding forested areas could lower land surface temperatures, and deciduous stand composition has the greatest cooling effectiveness. Overall, this study would provide valuable insights for UBC campus planners seeking to implement new strategies to enhance the resilience of the campus climate.
MGEM Student: Zitong Xu
Community Partner: Emma Luker from UBC Campus + Community Planning
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Xu, Zitong, 2023, “Assessing the Effect of Tree Stand Composition on Urban Cooling Effect on the UBC Vancouver Campus Using the 2021 Western North America Heat Wave”, https://doi.org/10.5683/SP3/8KO0WA, Borealis, V1