|aThis item must not be sold to any third party vendors.
520
|aAs residential urban development increases in the western U.S., few studies have shown how different urban forms influence vegetation cover. The two studies in this thesis examine how to define and measure residential urban forms and how they relate to vegetation cover. The first study begins by defining urban form. Past studies showed the most essential metrics that define residential urban form are building density, centrality, connectivity, land use mix, and parcel size. Consistent definitions and methods for measuring these metrics are proposed. Residential parcels of Cache County, Utah were measured for each metric. A K-means cluster analysis assign each parcel to one of 50 groups based on measurement similarities. The 10 most widely used groups represented distinct identifiable urban forms such as Agricultural residential, urban sprawl, historic plat patterns, and variations of each. The second study used the metrics and groups from the first study to check for correlations with vegetation cover. A normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) of aerial imagery of Cache County was used to classify land cover into three groups: dense vegetation, light vegetation, and no vegetation. Measurements of vegetation cover were extracted for each parcel and each urban form group. Total vegetation cover (TVC) and dense vegetation cover (DVC) measured higher in urban areas than in the county as a whole. Agricultural residential groups had among the highest TVC, but had the lowest DVC. Non-agricultural residential groups had the highest DVC as a percentage of TVC except for group 4 “Modern Suburban Sprawl” which had the lowest DVC as a percentage of TVC. Group 7 “Satellite Centers” had the highest TVC while group 3 “Dead End Semi-sprawl” had the lowest TVC but both groups had the highest DVC as a percentage of TVC.TVC had stronger correlations than DVC with urban form metrics. Building density had the strongest correlation with TVC (r = -0.62, p = 0). Correlations with TVC were also found with Parcel size (r = -0.23, p = <.001) and centrality (r = -0.21, p = <.001). Very weak relationships with TVC were found with connectivity and land use mix.
590
|aSchool code: 0241.
650
4
|aLandscape architecture.
650
4
|aUrban planning.
650
4
|aLand use planning.
653
|aUrban development
653
|aUrban form
653
|aVegetation cover
690
|a0390
690
|a0999
690
|a0536
710
2
|aUtah State University.|bLandscape Architecture and Environmental Planning.