Toward Improving Linkages between Climatology, Urban Fluxes, and Greenspaces in Shrinking Cities
Abstract
Continuous monitoring of urban fluxes, such as energy, water, and carbon fluxes, is essential to understand how changing urban density influences local climate. This is especially important in shrinking cities in the rust belt where vacant lots are ubiquitous. Green infrastructure has also been promoted as a cost-effective and eco-friendly alternative for replacing outdated grey infrastructure, aimed to mitigate flooding via stormwater storage and increased evapotranspiration. These greenspaces can provide other beneficial ecosystem services such as enhanced evaporative cooling to mitigate an urban heat island effect. However, greenspace is tightly linked with the climate through phenology, and the climate is changing. Linkages between changing climate and green infrastructure are not well understood. By looking at the ecohydrological processes associated with phenology, we can begin to explore these linkages. As a start, we installed an eddy covariance (EC) tower in Midtown Detroit in July 2019 to measure urban energy, water, and carbon fluxes associated with the vegetation distribution and phenology characteristic of shrinking cities. Next, we set Detroit's recent climate record in the context of a long term record. Our main objective is to understand how urban fluxes in the shrinking city are affected by changes in greenspace, including green infrastructure, and how this response can be linked to the changes in local climateƒ. These linkages are expected to help inform stakeholders of the ecohydrological impact of green infrastructure in shrinking cities under the pressures of climate change.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019AGUFM.H23Q2149H
- Keywords:
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- 1813 Eco-hydrology;
- HYDROLOGY;
- 1834 Human impacts;
- HYDROLOGY