Hello community,
I´m using the Urban Cooling Model to evaluate the ecosystem service provisioning from urban and periurban agriculture in São Paulo metropolis (Brazil). After understanding and running many times the UCM, I have some doubts about the values for shade. As for many of them I could not find local data, my reference is the biophysical table provided on sample data and the articles in reference.
The guide says: “the shade factor (‘shade’) represents the proportion of tree canopy (for trees >2m) associated with each land use/land cover (LULC) category. Its value is comprised between 0 and 1”. Anyway in the sample data we can find that agriculture and pasture (which are not covered by trees >2m) the considered value for shade equals 1.
- Would it make sense to consider agriculture and pasture areas as shade = 0 or some value beneath 1?
- How to consider hybrid forms between agriculture and forest, as in the study we are also considering agroforestry systems?
Biophysical_UHI_fake.csv (1012 Bytes)