Parks located in urban areas are known to mitigate the Urban Heat Island. Their cooling effects are well established in the literature as studies have been performed in urbanized areas around the world. This particular study was aimed at assessing the nature of suburban parklands in the City of Toronto vs. urban (downtown) and rural (outside the Greater Toronto Area) settings. To do this, five study sites were chosen; three parks of varying sizes (large, medium and small) and two backyards. The main research objective was to quantify the cooling effects; among the sizes, within the surrounding neighbourhood and through the day. The metrics used in this study included Day to Day Temperature Variability, Diurnal Temperature Range, and Temperature Variation through Time. The results showed the importance of trees in providing shade and the lake breeze from Lake Ontario. A clear suburban signal from the metrics was found.

Parks located in urban areas are known to mitigate the Urban Heat Island. Their cooling effects are well established in the literature as studies have been performed in urbanized areas around the world. This particular study was aimed at assessing the nature of suburban parklands in the City of Toronto vs. urban (downtown) and rural (outside the Greater Toronto Area) settings. To do this, five study sites were chosen; three parks of varying sizes (large, medium and small) and two backyards. The main research objective was to quantify the cooling effects; among the sizes, within the surrounding neighbourhood and through the day. The metrics used in this study included Day to Day Temperature Variability, Diurnal Temperature Range, and Temperature Variation through Time. The results showed the importance of trees in providing shade and the lake breeze from Lake Ontario. A clear suburban signal from the metrics was found.

Urban heat islands (UHIs) are unique phenomena that occur when urban areas experience higher temperatures than surrounding areas. The primary cause of urban heat islands is the absorption of insolation by urban structures that is nocturnally released. UHIs can cause many problems both environmentally and physically (in terms of human health). In 1998, Chicago joined the EPA’s Urban Heat Island Pilot Project (UHIPP), which aims to mitigate the UHI effect in pilot cities throughout the country. Exactly how effective has UHIPP been in reducing Chicago’s UHI effect? This research examines Chicago’s heat island effect from 1997 (pre-UHIPP) to 2007. Observations of surface temperatures, along with hourly historical air temperature data, and population data provide the information needed to investigate Chicago’s UHI effect. Relationships between temperature and land cover as well as temperature and population will give further indication of the influences of the UHI effect. More specifically, hot spot and cool spot analysis, will give Chicago and other cities an idea of the effectiveness of EPA’s UHIPP in reducing urban heat islands. / Department of Geography

The Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect is a function of excess heating of man-made impermeable surfaces and structures. Using Landsat satellite imagery along with its Thermal-Infrared (TIR) band, the UHI of Starkville, MS; Birmingham, AL; and Atlanta, GA were analyzed. Unsupervised classification of the Landsat imagery and temperature extraction from the TIR band revealed city size and amount of high-density urban land use are directly related to UHI intensity and higher than average surface temperatures. Vegetation analysis within the three study area cities, however, revealed an average surface temperature reduction of 2 °C with only 15% forest coverage within a 1km2 area. Results obtained can be useful as a potential monitoring tool that can characterize relationships between amount and percentage of urban tree cover and surface temperature. The information can be utilized by city planners and others who are interested in mitigating UHI effects in the ever- increasing urban America.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 264-277). Also available online.

The Urban Heat Island (UHI) is a phenomenon in which the urban temperature is higher than that of the non-urban areas. Previous studies from other countries showed that an UHI phenomenon exists in urbanized cities. In Hong Kong, instead of only few study using fixed stationary stations on UHI analysis, past effort have been concentrated on using traverse and remote sensing method to study the UHI. This dissertation therefore describes the annual, seasonal and diurnal UHI variability in Hong Kong based on hourly data of temperatures, wind speed and relative humidity from five selected fixed stations at urban and non-urban areas over the period 2001-2011. UHI intensity is calculated by the temperature difference between the urban and non-urban areas excluding the global warming factors and micro-climatic effects. The results showed that, although there is no significant increasing and decreasing trend in annual UHI variation, the maximum annual UHI intensity is increasing and the nocturnal UHI is proved significantly higher than that its daytime counterpart. The seasonal UHI variation is higher in summer or autumn and winter depends on the choice of non-urban stations due to different geographic settings and land use. The diurnal UHI variation revealed that the strongest UHI intensity was observed in late afternoon or early morning while the weakest one occurred in afternoon. Among the study groups, Hong Kong International Airport experiences the highest UHI intensity. It is probably due to the geographical settings, unique land use and significant anthropogenic heat. On the other hand, in using Ta Kwu Ling as non-urban stations, the wind speed showed a significant negative correlation with UHI intensity while the relative humidity showed a positive one in diurnal UHI variation. The results of the study indicated that the choice of non-urban station poses a significant impact to the UHI intensity calculation especially in seasonal and diurnal variations. Further study on choosing representative non-urban station for UHI intensity calculation is recommended. / published_or_final_version / Environmental Management / Master / Master of Science in Environmental Management

Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 2008. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains vii, 49 p. : ill. (some col.), col. maps. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 37-45).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 264-277). Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 177-196). Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 133-142). Also available in print.