Pervious area change as surrogate to diverse climatic variables trends in the CONUS: A county-scale assessment

Abstract

The increase in worldwide population is putting much pressure on the existent urban management plans. In this context, strategies and policies should be updated to conserve natural resources, but more importantly, to improve inhabitants' well-being. Studies focusing on pervious areas have many potentials, particularly regarding the assessment of potential green infrastructures within the vicinities of cities. This study highlights the pervious area change between 2001 and 2016 within every county in the CONtiguous United States (CONUS) based on the National Land Cover Database (NLCD). The study found that 43 different counties can be considered dense. A statistical analysis is followed, highlighting the air temperature, wind speed, precipitation, solar radiation, and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) trends in five characteristic counties. These datasets were retrieved from diverse remote sensing and satellite platforms between 1980 and 2019. The main results also found that air temperature was significantly (at α = 0.95) increasing for the same period. The other climatic variables depict fluctuating and usually insignificant trends. Such information would benefit decision- and policy-makers to focus their initiatives towards the most vulnerable counties while projecting different scenarios based on their current and historical conditions. Furthermore, this approach can be portable to other countries.