February 19, 2013
CAP Ph.D. student Juan Declet-Barreto presented research on vegetation and the urban heat island recently to a seminar of Fulbright scholars held in Phoenix. Declet-Barreto noted that a lack of vegetation in poor Latino neighborhoods drives up temperatures in the already hot summers in the Phoenix area. Planting desert-adapted trees can mitigate this heat. Declet-Barreto's research is a part of CAP's ongoing investigations of the urban heat island and the Urban Vulnerability to Climate Change project, funded through a separate grant from the National Science Foundation.