Urban Ecosystem Responses to Human Activity Shifts: Multi-Year Evidence from New York City Before, During, and After the COVID-19 Pandemic

This study integrates datasets from multiple sources: Remote sensing and land cover classification data (included in the upload): Shapefiles for large contiguous surfaces and road samples in NYC were extracted from the NYC Land Cover Raster Data (2017, 6-inch resolution) and the NYC Street Map. Land surface properties, including land surface temperature (LST), normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), and albedo, were derived from a series of Landsat 8 imagery. External datasets available from official repositories (accessed via the provided links): Daily air pollutant concentrations (PM₂.₅ and NO₂, 2015–2024) are available from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Solar radiation flux can be downloaded from the National Solar Radiation Database (NSRDB) (coordinates: 40.71°N, 74.01°W). Vertical temperature profiles from the OKX Upton weather station on Long Island are accessible via the University of Wyoming Upper Air Soundings archive. Gao, Y., & Yang, X. (2026). Urban Ecosystem Responses to Human Activity Shifts: Multi-Year Evidence from New York City Before, During, and After the COVID-19 Pandemic. Ecosystems, 29(2). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-026-01051-5 (Full-text view-only link: https://rdcu.be/e5TxE)