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Assessment of Climate Change in the Southwest United States pp 267–296Cite as

Urban Areas

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Part of the book series: NCA Regional Input Reports ((NCARIR))

Abstract

The unique characteristics of Southwest cities will shape both the ways they will be impacted by climate change and the ways the urban areas will adapt to the change. The Southwest represents a good portion of the arid and semi-arid region of North America and many of its cities rely on large-scale, federally built water storage and conveyance structures. Water regimes in this part of the country are expected to be significantly impacted by climate change because of higher temperatures, reduced snowpack, and other factors, including possibly reduced or more unpredictable patterns of precipitation, which will affect cities and their water supplies. Further, the cities are likely to experience greater numbers of high-temperature days, creating vulnerabilities among populations who lack air conditioning or access to cooling shelters. Myriad and overlapping governmental organizations are responsible for public goods and services in the region, as in other parts of the country. Their jurisdictions generally do not correspond to ecosystem or watershed boundaries, creating mismatches for climate adaptation programs and policies and significant barriers to cooperation and collaboration. Finally, many local governments are facing budget constraints, making it difficult to plan and implement new programs to anticipate the potential impacts of climate change.

Chapter citation: Pincetl, S., G. Franco, N. B. Grimm, T. S. Hogue, S. Hughes, E. Pardyjak, A. M. Kinoshita, and P. Jantz. 2013. “Urban Areas.” In Assessment of Climate Change in the Southwest United States: A Report Prepared for the National Climate Assessment, edited by G. Garfin, A. Jardine, R. Merideth, M. Black, and S. LeRoy, 267–296. A report by the Southwest Climate Alliance. Washington, DC: Island Press.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. (Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, University of California, Los Angeles), USA

    Stephanie Pincetl

  2. (California State Energy Commission), USA

    Guido Franco

  3. (Arizona State University), USA

    Nancy B. Grimm

  4. (Civil and Environmental Engineering, UCLA), USA

    Terri S. Hogue & Alicia M. Kinoshita

  5. (National Center for Atmospheric Research), USA

    Sara Hughes

  6. (University of Utah, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Environmental Fluid Dynamics Laboratory), USA

    Eric Pardyjak

  7. (Woods Hole Research Center), USA

    Patrick Jantz

  8. (local governments for sustainability), USA

    Monica Gilchrist

Authors
  1. Stephanie Pincetl
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  2. Guido Franco
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  3. Nancy B. Grimm
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  4. Terri S. Hogue
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  5. Sara Hughes
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  6. Eric Pardyjak
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  7. Alicia M. Kinoshita
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  8. Patrick Jantz
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  9. Monica Gilchrist
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of the Environment, University of Arizona, N. Park Ave Ste. 532 845, 85721, Tucson, Arizona, USA

    Gregg Garfin

  2. University of Arizona, USA

    Angela Jardine , Robert Merideth , Mary Black  & Sarah LeRoy , ,  & 

Endnotes

Endnotes

  1. i

    An urban metabolism refers to the total urban systems flows of materials, energy and inputs, and outputs in the form of waste. Supply chains are components of the urban metabolism.

  2. ii

    Urban heat island effect was defined as “the relative warmth of a city compared with surrounding rural areas, associated with changes in runoff, the concrete jungle effects on heat retention, changes in surface albedo, changes in pollution and aerosols, and so on” by the IPCC (2007).

  3. iii

    See http://www.water.ca.gov/floodsafe/.

  4. iv

    The EC method is a widely used micrometeorological technique designed to measure turbulent exchanges of mass, momentum, and heat between an underlying surface and the atmosphere (see Aubinet, Vesala and Papale 2012 and references within). For CO2 exchange, rapid measurements of vertical velocity fluctuations and CO2 mixing ratio are made on a tower well above the buildings and trees of an urban surface in the so-called constant flux layer. From these quantities, a covariance is computed (Baldocchi 2003). If appropriate assumptions are satisfied, the covariance is a measure of the net differences between the uptake of CO2 by photosynthesis and the emission of CO2 by anthropogenic and biological processes.

  5. v

    Difficulties are both practical and technical. Practical difficulties include funding for such equipment as flux towers, their siting in urban areas, and funds to conduct the monitoring and data analysis. Additional technical difficulties exist related to quantifying important contributions to fluxes, such as those related to complex distributions of sources and sinks and their relationship to advection and non-homogeneous surfaces that are common in urban areas (Feigenwinter, Vogt, and Christen 2012).

  6. vi

    A source is a process or activity through which a greenhouse gas is released into the atmosphere. A sink is something that acts as a reservoir to absorb it on a short-or long-term basis.

  7. vii

    See http://www.urban-climate.org.

  8. viii

    CO2 concentrations can cause higher levels of PM 2.5 by increasing vapor pressures in some locations (Jacobson 2010b).

  9. ix

    See http://www.energycodes.gov/states/state (U.S. Department of Energy’s Building Energy Codes Program).

  10. x

    See http://www.epa.gov/region9/climatechange/smart-growth.html.

  11. xi

    Misery days are days when the temperature maximum is greater than or equal to 110 °F or when the temperature minimum is less than 32°F.

  12. xii

    Stomata, the microscopic pores on the leaves and stems of plants, are the means by which plants transpire, or lose water vapor to the atmosphere. Although there is some debate on plant stomatal response to increasing temperatures, a significant body of research indicates that evapotranspiration rates (the combination of evaporation and transpiration) may increase (Gutzler and Robbins 2011; Matonse et al. 2011; Lopez, Hogue, and Stein in review).

  13. xiii

    A barrier well intrusion barrier is a well used to inject water into a fresh water aquifer to prevent the intrusion of salt water.

  14. xiv

    See http://www.environment.ucla.edu/larc/

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Pincetl, S. et al. (2013). Urban Areas. In: Garfin, G., Jardine, A., Merideth, R., Black, M., LeRoy, S. (eds) Assessment of Climate Change in the Southwest United States. NCA Regional Input Reports. Island Press, Washington, DC. https://doi.org/10.5822/978-1-61091-484-0_13

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