- Effects of the spatial pattern of vegetation cover on urban warming in a desert city

Abstract

Vegetation cover lowers air and surface temperatures in urban areas. What is less known, however, is the spatial pattern of vegetation and its variable inuence on urban warming. Hence, we combine remote-sensing techniques with climate data to address the role of spatial patterns of vegetation in relation to air temperatures. Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus image at 30 meter (m) resolution over the Phoenix metropolitan area acquired on April 19, 2000, was used. Multiple endmember spectral mixture analysis, an extension of the spectral mixture analysis approach, was used to quantify vegetation fractions at subpixel level. The Getis statistic was used to determine the spatial pattern of vegetation fractions (clustered, random, dispersed) at different levels of spatial scales (i.e., 11 × 11, 17 × 17, 23 × 23, 29 × 29, 35 × 35 window size). Results from this study suggest that spatial arrangements of vegetation play an important role in lowering air temperatures (i.e., maximum, minimum, mean). It was found that clustered vegetation can lower air temperatures more effectively than dispersed vegetation. The spatial pattern of clustered vegetation can lower minimum air temperatures (nighttime) more effectively than maximum air temperatures (daytime). The temperature difference of the lowering between dispersedCONTENTS11.1 Introduction ................................................................................. 262 11.2 Data and study area ...................................................................... 263 11.3 Method ......................................................................................... 26611.3.1 Subpixel analysis to quantify vegetation fractions ............. 266 11.3.2 Spatial pattern analysis ...................................................... 267 11.3.3 Regression analysis ............................................................ 26911.4 Results and discussion .................................................................. 269 11.5 Conclusion .................................................................................... 274 Acknowledgments ................................................................................. 275 References ............................................................................................. 275and clustered patterns of vegetation cover for minimum air temperature is 7.44°C.