Associations of Urban and Green Land Covers and Heat Waves in 49 U.S. Cities between 1992 and 2019

Hasan, Sakib; Choi, Woonsup; Kang, Sangjun

doi:10.3390/ijerph19137688

Submit to this Journal Review for this Journal Edit a Special Issue

Article Menu

...

Open AccessArticle

Associations of Urban and Green Land Covers and Heat Waves in 49 U.S. Cities between 1992 and 2019

Sakib Hasan

¹,

Woonsup Choi

and

Sangjun Kang

^2,*

Department of Geography, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI 53211, USA

Department of Urban Planning & Real Estate, Gangneung-Wonju National University, Gangneung 25457, Korea

Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Academic Editor: Donghyun Kim

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19(13), 7688; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19137688

Received: 23 May 2022 / Revised: 21 June 2022 / Accepted: 21 June 2022 / Published: 23 June 2022

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Health Impacts of Climate Change on Citizens in Urban Area)

View Full-Text Download PDF

Browse Figures

Citation Export

Abstract

The study aimed to examine how changing land use conditions are related to the occurrence of heat waves. The employed methods were (1) the Urban Expansion Intensity Index (UEII) and the Green Expansion Intensity (GEII) for 49 cities in the U.S. between 1992 and 2019; (2) Spearman correlation analyses of heat wave indicators including frequency, season, duration, and intensity for UEII, and GEII, respectively. Major findings include the following: (1) urban areas have increased rapidly with an average UEII value of 1.5; (2) green Areas have increased at a slow pace, which have a GEII average value of 0.017, where the median value is −0.1, meaning the green area is declining in most U.S. cities; (3) The UEII and heat wave duration show a negative relationship with a significant correlation (

γ_{s}

= −0.296 and

ρ

= 0.04); (4) UEII and heat wave intensity show a positive relationship with a significant correlation (

γ_{s}

= 0.32 and

ρ

= 0.027). It was found that heat wave intensity can be a public health issue in high urban expansion intensity areas. The results imply that cities would be better in a more compact pattern with more expanded green areas to mitigate the negative health impacts of heat waves on citizens in urban areas. It is noticeable that there are some patterns to be investigated further in the context of urban developments and heat wave characteristics. View Full-Text

Keywords: urban expansion intensity index; green expansion intensity index; Spearman correlation; heat wave

▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited

Share and Cite

MDPI and ACS Style

Hasan, S.; Choi, W.; Kang, S. Associations of Urban and Green Land Covers and Heat Waves in 49 U.S. Cities between 1992 and 2019. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19, 7688. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19137688

AMA Style

Hasan S, Choi W, Kang S. Associations of Urban and Green Land Covers and Heat Waves in 49 U.S. Cities between 1992 and 2019. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2022; 19(13):7688. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19137688

Chicago/Turabian Style

Hasan, Sakib, Woonsup Choi, and Sangjun Kang. 2022. "Associations of Urban and Green Land Covers and Heat Waves in 49 U.S. Cities between 1992 and 2019" International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 19, no. 13: 7688. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19137688

Find Other Styles

Note that from the first issue of 2016, MDPI journals use article numbers instead of page numbers. See further details here.

Article Metrics

Abstract views Pdf views Html views

Article Menu

Associations of Urban and Green Land Covers and Heat Waves in 49 U.S. Cities between 1992 and 2019

Abstract

Share and Cite

Article Metrics

Article Access Statistics

Article Access Map by Country/Region

Further Information

Guidelines

MDPI Initiatives

Follow MDPI