INDIANAPOLIS — This summer, urban natural area specialists and ecologists from the Indianapolis Office of Land Stewardship team are participating in a cross-country study as part of the Forests in Cities network. These researchers are collaborating to quantify differences in temperature across natural and built environments using satellite data by assessing trends in mature, healthy forests compared to degraded woods and developed sites as a control. Researchers have also deployed temperature sensors in urban forested natural areas to test whether healthier ecosystems are cooler than unhealthy ecosystems.
The temperature sensors are installed at the same height and north-facing position across all locations and will record the air temperature every five minutes until the end of September. Locations include Eagle Creek Park, Marott Park, and Paul Ruster Park.
2021 was the hottest summer on record in the United States. Cities are documented to be between two and ten degrees hotter than rural areas, and extreme heat is the leading cause of weather-related deaths in the U.S. Planting trees and expanding green spaces are known to combat urban heat, but the magnitude of cooling benefits has not been quantified across different segments of the urban forest, such as between trees in managed and natural landscapes, nor across the patchwork of land cover types that make up cities.
The study is currently underway, and data is expected to be finalized this winter. The results will help Indianapolis and other cities better understand how urban natural areas can contribute to cooling urban settings and effective climate action by guiding management decisions in regard to increasing canopy and limiting the urban heat island effect.