Background-
See Lab One
(In focusing on Environmental Analysis in the Anthropocene, a current question worth heavy exploration is in the way ecosystems and patterns are disrupted by the increased transformation and development carried out by humans. Every day, we are seeing changes and shifts in ecosystems, watching urbanization grow, and a disruption occur for native vegetation and species. But how do we find the the effects that correlate with our development of suburban neighborhoods, and urbanization to accommodate to a growing, technology-hungry population? This question spurred the decision to carry out some observations in and around a neighborhood near the Lewis and Clark College campus. By collecting temperature and humidity data from points in a similar region, but with various levels of vegetation cover and urban development, we can begin to distinguish possible effects being incurred.)
Procedure-
In order to more effectively understand landscape manipulations, we went back to our land cover site to gather data on the canopy and ground cover in the area.
1. After first measuring 21.2 meters diagonally in each direction from our centroid to gather the accurate measurements of our site, we found our MUC land cover code to be 91, based on the majority of urbanization sighted in our site.
2. We then used a clinometer to measure the height of the tallest object in the site, which was an Evergreen reaching 23.7 meters in height (creating a 113 degree angle from the point of measurement.
3. Using a densimeter (made using a paper towel roll), 25 observations in our site of canopy and ground cover were collected, measured by paces (two steps each) along the diagonals of our cover site.
4. For any observations that revealed ground or canopy cover, we also recorded the type of cover provided.
Analysis and Results-
One interesting result found in our measurements, which portrayed 20% of canopy cover cover to be canopy shrubs (canopy cover that is less that 5 meters tall, but more than 50 cm). These are normally rare, as most of the vegetation we are seeing is either a tree, shrub, or grass. However, the tree that grew at our centroid (thus our common point) was a canopy shrub, resulting in results that show a larger percentage of canopy cover, but was truly a single tree repetitively visited (skewed results in a seemingly fair way to measure).
Discussion
The lack of any ground cover or canopy cover on the majority of our land cover site displays the amount of urbanization that has occurred, a vast difference from centroids that were in RVNC. The majority of my our sight was, in fact, simply asphalt and gravel from the street and driveway. While I did not have much control over outside factors in order to find the direct temperature and humidity changes that are resulting from manipulated landscapes, versus undisturbed ecosystems, there were some valuable observations. In comparing with the results of other centroid locations in and around Lewis and Clark’s campus, I noticed a trend in which temperatures fluctuated much more in areas that were more developed (more concrete and asphalt). Areas with more vegetation seem to have had more stable climates. If this observation was so obvious in such a small sample, it would be interesting to start looking at this on a more global scale, considering we are experiencing this overall fluctuating system of climate change in diverse ways, proving similar results to our smaller scale observations carried out through this lab.