People that worked on this project
- Sam Zipper, graduate student
Research topics
- Urban heat island
- Growing season length
- Plant water requirements
- Urban ecology
Urban heat island impacts on growing season length
We found that the urban heat island led to a significantly longer growing season in the City of Madison relative to surrounding rural areas. Urban parks were intermediate between urban and rural areas, indicating that a ‘park cool island’ effect may be offsetting the urban heat island in these environments. Variability in growing season length was highly correlated to nearby land cover – differences in impervious cover in the 500 m surrounding each sensor explained >50% of the variability in growing season length across all sensors.
For more information: Zipper SC, J Schatz, A Singh, P Townsend, CJ Kucharik, SP Loheide II (2016). Urban heat island impacts on plant phenology: Intra-urban variability and response to land cover. Environmental Research Letters 11(5): 054023. DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/11/5/054023
Urban heat island impacts on plant water requirements
Our results showed that urban plants have significantly higher water requirements, as measured by Penman-Monteith reference evapotranspiration, than those in surrounding rural areas. Like the growing season, parks had an intermediate response. Changes in the water needs of urban plants were driven primarily by hotter air temperature during the middle of the growing season, while changes in air vapor pressure had a negligible effect. These results indicate that increases in plant water requirements may offset up to ~10% of the losses in evapotranspiration caused by urbanization.
For more information: Zipper SC, J Schatz, CJ Kucharik, SP Loheide II (2017). Urban heat island-induced increases in evapotranspirative demand. Geophysical Research Letters, 44(2): 2016GL072190. DOI: 10.1002/2016GL072190
Media, news stories, and blog posts
- Greener cities could help urban plants endure summer heat. AGU GeoSpace (link).
- Here’s more reason to green our cities. Yahara In Situ (link).
- Parks can reduce urban heat island. Environmental Monitor (link).
- Parks provide islands of cool in urban areas. Conservation Magazine (link).
- Spring comes earlier to urban environments. Voice of America (link), Big News Network (link).
- Spring comes sooner to urban heat islands, with potential consequences for wildlife. Environmental News Network (link), ScienceDaily (link), Phys.org (link), EnvironmentalResearchWeb (link)
- Video abstract for 2016 paper: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaTFs6VEpTU
Publications
Zipper SC, J Schatz, CJ Kucharik, SP Loheide II (2017). Urban heat island-induced increases in evapotranspirative demand. Geophysical Research Letters, 44(2): 2016GL072190. DOI: 10.1002/2016GL072190
Zipper SC, J Schatz, A Singh, P Townsend, CJ Kucharik, SP Loheide II (2016). Urban heat island impacts on plant phenology: Intra-urban variability and response to land cover. Environmental Research Letters 11(5): 054023. DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/11/5/054023