Urban Systems

For more than the last century, humans have been increasingly migrating to urban centers to seek greater economic and social opportunity. These trends are projected to continue well into the next century at both the global and domestic scales. As the trend of urbanization continues, greater understanding of the inherent feedbacks this development has on the natural environment become increasingly important. My dissertation research focuses on the feedback loop between different types of built environment and the urban micro-climate, specifically the Urban Heat Island (UHI).

Using Durham County as a research site, historical and regional data are analyzed to quantify the regional heat island signature and its correlation to land-use classification schemes used by both the UHI community and the Planning community. Data from a real-time, ground campaign to measure physical characteristics of the study region took place during the Summer of 2015.