Date of Award
5-11-2025
Date Published
June 2025
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
Geography & the Environment
Advisor(s)
Peng Gao
Keywords
GIS;Microclimate;Spatial Analysis;Urban Morphology
Subject Categories
Geography | Social and Behavioral Sciences
Abstract
Rapid urbanization due to the population boom in urban areas changes the physical layout and structures of cities including buildings, streets, open spaces, and amenities, which are collectively defined as urban morphology. Microclimate dynamics of urban environments, such as airflow, heat retention, and pollution dispersion, are profoundly affected by urban morphology. Although the roles of urban morphology at small spatial scales (e.g., single buildings, building complexes, or buildings within a block) in microclimate dynamics have been extensively studied, the scale-up effect of buildings at the city scale on microclimate dynamics is still not fully understood. In this thesis, I examined the spatial characteristics (distributions and patterns) of urban morphology in Syracuse with reference to the existing zoning design. The urban morphology is embodied in six representative parameters that are most relevant to microclimate dynamics, namely Porosity, Rugosity, Occlusivity, Sinuosity, Compacity, and Mineralization. Each parameter is calculated at a relatively large spatial scale, census block group (CBG), and the city has a total of 133 CBGs. The first part of my thesis concerned calculations of the six parameters and their spatial distributions across the city. Based on the definitions of these parameters, I manually calculated their values in all 133 CBGs and analyzed their geographic distributions in terms of the associated city zoning designations. Porosity is mainly dominated by open spaces (OS). CBGs with high Porosity values tend to be designed as OS districts and located in the northwestern part of the city. Higher values of Rugosity, Sinuosity, Compacity, and Mineralization exist in CBGs concentrated in the geographic center of the city, which is designed as the urban core and business district (MX-4 and MX-5). Values of Occlusivity are randomly distributed across Syracuse, indicating this spatial characteristic is not relevant to any type of zoning design. The second part of my thesis dealt with the geospatial patterns of these six parameters based on four distinct geostatistical techniques: central features and standard distance for measuring central tendency, Global Moran’s I for determining global spatial pattern, and hot spot analysis for identifying local clusters. The central features of the six parameters do not share the same CBG and their corresponding standard distances show different orientations and sizes, suggesting that buildings in Syracuse have different spatial centers and degrees of compactness and orientations for different spatial characteristics. Only four parameters- Rugosity, Sinuosity, Compacity, and Mineralization- demonstrate cluster patterns over the city, but to varying degrees of the cluster. All of the six parameters exhibit local cluster with high values concentrated in different neighborhoods of the city. CBGs with high values of Rugosity, Occlusivity, Compacity, and Mineralization tend to be packed in the city center, and those with high Sinuosity values present in the mixed-use districts, indicating that these areas have relatively straight and regularly arranged streets. The third part of my thesis tackled the issue of linking urban morphology to two aspects of microclimate dynamics, urban heat islands (UHIs) and ventilation potential (VP), through the lens of large-scale spatial characteristics. Based on the existing knowledge of the relevance between each parameter and UHIs and VP, respectively, I created a comprehensive index by combining Rugosity, Compacity, and Mineralization for UHIs and another one for VP by using all but compacity. By revealing the spatial patterns of these two indices, I revealed that the high values of the first index are concentrated in the urban core (MX-4) and central business district (MX-5), representing the potential hot spots of UHIs, while those of the second index are distributed along the outskirts of the city, indicating the focused areas of ventilation. These linkages suggest that at the city scale, tall, densely located buildings in the city center enhance the UHIs effect, whereas low and identical residential houses around the city periphery promote ventilation. These findings provide a solid benchmark for future studies of the roles of urban morphology in microclimate dynamics at the city scale.
Access
Open Access
Recommended Citation
Rana, Md Sohel, "Understanding the Spatial Characteristics of Urban Morphology and Its Application" (2025). Theses - ALL. 924.
https://surface.syr.edu/thesis/924
