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Assessing the Effect of Tree Stand Composition on Urban Cooling Effect on the UBC Vancouver Campus : Using the 2021 Western North America Heat Wave

University of British Columbia. Faculty of Forestry; University of British Columbia. Campus and Community Planning

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. Disclaimer: “UBC SEEDS provides students with the opportunity to share the findings of their studies, as well as their opinions, conclusions and recommendations with the UBC community. The reader should bear in mind that this is a student project/report and is not an official document of UBC. Furthermore readers should bear in mind that these reports may not reflect the current status of activities at UBC. We urge you to contact the research persons mentioned in a report or the SEEDS Coordinator about the current status of the subject matter of a project/report.”

Report

eng

2023-09-07

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/85861

Unreviewed

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/