Authors: Tammy E. Parece, James B. Campbell, and David Carroll
Within urban areas, variations within the built environment create unique microclimates because of diversity in thermal properties of surface materials and alterations of the hydrologic cycle. Resolving intra-urban microclimate variability presents an opportunity to evaluate spatial dimensions of urban heat island effects, including daily air temperature fluctuations and local variations in start and end of growing seasons. Observations from National Weather Service (NWS) stations are often used to characterize regional conditions, yet such data are widely spaced and can only indicate conditions specific to that site. To effectively represent the fabric of temperature variations within an urban area, a finer network of data collection points is required. We report on a weather data collection campaign within Roanoke, Virginia using mobile weather units and weather stations newly installed at local public schools. We describe these data collection programs, outline methods developed for our collection pattern, and our preliminary analyses. We discuss our results and how they relate to the variation in Roanoke’s built environment. This research forms the first phase of dissertation research evaluating urban social and environmental patterns to facilitate optimal placement of urban agriculture. It provides the basis for understanding the spatial context for urban agriculture, and for ameliorating social and environmental difficulties inherent to modern urban systems. It fills a gap in current strategies, which largely have lacked spatial perspectives, and uses the power of geospatial technologies to identify relationships between the environmental and social dimensions of urban systems, and the spatial nature of their synergies.
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