CAREER: Spatial Heterogeneity and Ecosystem Function in an Urban Landscape: An Integrated Research, Teaching, and Community Engagement Program

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Urban areas are dominated by three physical features: 1) buildings, 2) surfaces, such as pavement and bare soil, and 3) vegetation. The amount and arrangement of these features on the urban landscape may influence a city?s capacity to retain surface storm water and dissipate heat. These capacities are important because cities are frequently prone to flash flooding and extreme heat. High temperatures exacerbate ground level ozone formation, an air quality concern, and lead to high water and energy use. The urban landscape is characterized by complex combinations of these features, which change over very short distances. Understanding how land cover determines the capacity to retain surface water and dissipate heat is difficult because current methods to describe urban land cover focus on how the land is used, such as for residential or commercial purposes, and do not recognize the variation in physical features that may exist within these different use categories. This research will apply a new descriptor of land cover to Sacramento, California, that captures variation in the physical features and will test whether this new land cover methodology improves understanding of the link between physical features and water retention and heat dissipation. Stream discharge will be quantified in 5 small city catchments that drain areas of contrasting variation. Fine scale measurements of land surface temperature will be derived from satellite data. Flooding and heat exposure in urban areas put human, as well as animal and plant populations at risk. Results from this research will inform design and management decisions in urban systems to reduce these risks. New undergraduate courses and research opportunities to expose students to the highly interdisciplinary, and rapidly changing, field of urban ecology will be developed.