The New Jersey Institute of Technology's
Electronic Theses & Dissertations Project

Title:	The role of trees in reducing the urban heat island effect on the New Jersey Institute of Technology campus, Newark, NJ
Author:	Mansour, Dahlia
View Online:	njit-etd2023-009 (ix, 31 pages ~ 0.9 MB pdf)
Department:	Federated Biological Sciences Department of NJIT and Rutgers-Newark
Degree:	Master of Science
Program:	Biology
Document Type:	Thesis
Advisory Committee:	Bunker, Daniel E. (Committee chair) Russell, Gareth J. (Committee member) Barden, Phillip (Committee member)
Date:	2023-05
Keywords:	Urban heat island effect Trees species
Availability:	Unrestricted
Abstract:	The Urban Heat Island Effect is a phenomenon where cities experience higher temperatures than the surrounding rural areas. This elevated air temperature occurs when cities replace the natural green cover with high-density infrastructure, resulting in increased absorbance of solar radiation and decreased cooling via evapotranspiration. The urban heat island effect can increase temperatures by 1 - 7 °C during the day and 2 - 5 °C during the night. The increased temperatures impact human health, increase energy use, and exacerbate air and water pollution. In this study, the role of trees was investigated in mitigating the increased air temperature associated with the urban heat island effect, and specifically hypothesized that this effect is measured at the scale of individual trees. To test our hypothesis, the air temperature was measured at 2 meters and 10 meters away from the 28 individual trees on the NJIT campus. No significant differences were able to be detected in air temperature at this scale. Our results suggested that differences at this scale and time of the year are difficult to detect, and that further study is needed to carefully quantify the effects of individual trees.