ISCAP Proceedings: Abstract Presentation
Urban Environmental Protection Infrastructure: Assessing Routine
Environmental Mitigation and Air Quality in New York City
Alexander Card
Nichols College
Prajjwal Panday
Nichols College
Abstract
Chronic air pollution, urban heat islands, and extreme climate events have driven
environmental stress in urban areas at an accelerating rate. These factors pose
significant public health risks and strain urban resilience. Central parks and tree
canopies can help improve air quality and ecosystem health. Their effectiveness at
scale for environmental protection across both routine and extreme air-quality
conditions is important. This study uses a Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
analytical framework to assess the capacity and limitations of urban green infrastructure
in New York City by comparing a standard environmental control with the extreme
impacts of the July 2026 Canadian wildfires.
Within the research project, the main programming focus will be ArcGIS Pro to integrate
high-resolution air pollution data, satellite-derived land surface temperature, park
boundaries, tree canopy, land cover, and demographic datasets to evaluate
environmental stress across New York City. Routine air pollution and urban heat
patterns will first be analyzed independently to establish baseline environmental
conditions. Building on the completed Central Park case study, the project will expand to
include a representative selection of parks using raster analysis, buffer analysis, zonal
statistics, and spatial overlay techniques. These analyses will quantify changes in air
quality and temperature within parks and across surrounding urban areas. After
establishing a baseline, the study will highlight the ability to mitigate and influence
environmental stress. The same methodology will then be applied to the July 2026
Canadian wildfire smoke event, allowing for a direct comparison between routine
conditions and an extreme regional air pollution episode.
The main goal of this project is to capture the capacity and limitations of urban green
infrastructure for overall environmental health. The current structure of small-scale
parks and Central Park is expected to help with cooling and improve air quality under
routine conditions. Under more severe environmental stress, these impacts could
disrupt local environmental progress and limit future sustainability. The project ultimately
supports green infrastructure as one component of a broader strategy for urban
resilience, climate adaptation, and environmental planning.