Nelson_TreeCanopy_SurfaceTemp_Baltimore

This repository contains data and materials associated with the study “Urban Tree Canopy and Surface Temperature Disparities in Baltimore: Implications for Public Health and Environmental Equity.” The study examines the relationship between urban tree canopy coverage and land surface temperatures across Baltimore census tracts, highlighting disparities in heat exposure and potential implications for public health and environmental equity. Included in this repository are: the cleaned datasets used for analysis, scripts for statistical analyses and visualization, and supplemental figures and tables referenced in the manuscript. Researchers and policymakers can use these resources to further explore urban heat mitigation strategies and environmental equity in urban planning.Data on percent tree canopy coverage were obtained from the Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance–Jacob France Institute (BNIA-JFI) and the Baltimore City Open Data portal (2017; BNIA-JFI, 2017). Average LST data were derived from NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) via the Application for Extracting and Exploring Analysis Ready Samples (AppEEARS) platform for the summer months of June through August 2017 (NASA, 2017).