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Creators: School of Public Affairs

Optimizing Green Space Locations to Reduce Daytime and Nighttime Urban Heat Island Effects in Phoenix, Arizona

Description

The urban heat island effect is especially significant in semi-arid climates, generating a myriad of problems for large urban areas. Green space can mitigate warming, providing cooling benefits important to reducing energy consumption and improving human health. The arrangement of green space to reap the full potential of cooling benefits is a challenge, especially considering the diurnal variations of urban heat island effects. Surprisingly, methods that support the strategic placement of green space in the context of urban heat island are lacking. Integrating geographic information systems, remote sensing, spatial statistics and spatial optimization, we developed a framework to identify the best locations and configuration of new green space with respect to cooling benefits. The developed multi-objective model is applied to evaluate the diurnal cooling trade-offs in Phoenix, Arizona. As a result of optimal green space placement, significant cooling potentials can be achieved. A reduction of land surface temperature of approximately 1–2 °C locally and 0.5 °C regionally can be achieved by the addition of new green space. 96% of potential day and night cooling benefits can be achieved through simultaneous consideration. The results also demonstrate that clustered green space enhances local cooling because of the agglomeration effect; whereas, dispersed patterns lead to greater overall regional cooling. The optimization based framework can effectively inform planning decisions with regard to green space allocation to best ameliorate excessive heat.

ContributorsZhang, Yujia (Author) / Murray, Alan T. (Author) / Turner, II, B.L. (Author)

Created2017-07-31

Evaluating Tempe’s Climate Action Plan Through Comparison of New York City’s, Los Angeles’s, and Seattle’s Municipal Green New Deal

Description

The fight for climate justice has been ongoing for decades. However, in a recent effort to address climate change, U.S. congressional leaders Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts proposed a resolution known as the Green New Deal (GND). Though congress defeated the proposal, the policy changes envisioned within it have gained political momentum from states and municipalities. So much so, municipalities in the United States have decided to implement their own versions of the GND proposal. Throughout this paper, I analyze the components of three nationally recognized climate proposals that offer a unique approach to actualize the federal GND objectives: New York City's Climate Mobilization Act, Los Angeles's Green New Deal – Sustainable City pLAn, and Seattle's Green New Deal. From these proposals, I draw comparisons to Tempe's Climate Action plan to evaluate their efforts. Though this paper is primarily focused on analyzing the components of municipal GNDs across the nation, this paper also contends that municipalities' are a necessary complement to national efforts in mitigating climate change.

ContributorsMazariegos, Ashley (Author) / Fong, Benjamin Y. (Thesis director) / Calhoun, Craig (Committee member) / Economics Program in CLAS (Contributor) / School of Public Affairs (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)

Created2020-12

Campaign for Safer Streets

Description

Maryvale has several notable characteristics that distinguish it from other municipalities in the city of Phoenix. For one, Maryvale makes up 5% of Arizona's total population; meanwhile, 44% of its residents are under the age of 24. Increasingly, they have the “second-highest percentage of residents living below the poverty line” with 54% of adults reporting an income below $50,000 a year. One reason why pedestrian fatalities are so common in Maryvale is because of the insecurities in their infrastructure. Many adults work outside of the village, so they rely on public transportation and city installments like sidewalks and light posts to get them home safely every day. Due to the reduction in the quality of their infrastructure, it is more likely that an adult traveling or using public transportation may be fatally injured by a motor vehicle in the village. By contrast, the city of Tempe has comparable demographics with Maryvale, but they have a more sophisticated transportation system surrounding the metropolis. I used this as inspiration to transfer the focus of my project from Maryvale to Tempe because the infrastructure is more elaborate in the latter; there are more people and therefore more opportunities to broadcast this information.

ContributorsBah, Khadijah (Author) / Lucio, Joanna (Thesis director) / Cole, Erik (Committee member) / School of Public Affairs (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)

Created2020-05