mulch, decomposed granite, or synthetic turf) may offer potential to reduce irrigation inputs, they also result in noticeably increased volumes of runoff during rainfall events. In addition, the extra time and cost associated with maintenance required for weed control also needs to be considered. Synthetic turf offers season-long green color but has produced extremely high surface temperatures (nearly double that of natural grass) making it a poor alternative for warm climates, such as Texas. Also, the initial construction cost for artificial turf is relatively higher than other landscapes, and it is not included as an option in many rebate programs. Te natural grass St. Augustinegrass lawn treatments demonstrated the greatest capacity to capture rainfall, thus mitigating runoff losses, lower overall weed counts, and have moderated surface temperatures. Information gained from this research will benefit municipalities, water purveyors, and homeowner associations as they weigh the long-term consequences and impacts of lawn removal and landscape conversion programs.
Mapping and Monitoring Turfgrass Cooling Effects from the House to the City Scale in Inland California
($20,000, 2018-19) USDA’s National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) imagery (pixel size = 0.6 m x 0.6 m) from 2016 was used to study the difference in reflectance in the blue, green, red, and near infrared between natural grass and artificial turf surfaces in the Riverside, CA, area. We compared the two surface types over known locations, namely seven high-schools and one community college having a football field in artificial turf and an adjacent baseball/softball field in natural grass; and two municipal recreation areas having artificial turf and natural grass soccer fields. We extracted the signatures of the surfaces from ca. 190,000 grass and ca. 300,000 artificial turf pixels using ArcMap 10.5. Te signatures were used to train a supervised algorithm to identify all homes in Riverside having artificial turf in their front lawn or backyard. Tis automated classification was done using ArcMap’s maximum likelihood classification algorithm and identified pixels with the 99 percent probability of being artificial turf.
We visually compared the supervised classification with a dataset of known homes (n=55) having artificial turf. Tis dataset was obtained by searching
Google.com with the following query "artificial turf " riverside site:
zillow.com. Te comparison indicated that the supervised classification adequately identified over 90 percent of the houses from the
Zillow.com dataset. Subsequently, we selected four areas of interest (AOIs), namely Orange Crest (OC), Moreno Valley (MV), Victoria/Eastside/University (VEU), and Downtown/Jurupa (DJ) for the aerial thermal imagery acquisition. Within these areas we identified all the homes having artificial turf in the front and/or backyard: 52 in OC, 2 in MV, 11 in VEU, and 5 in DJ. Using Google Maps and StreetView imagery, we selected nearby homes having grass and xeriscape in the front yard, in equal numbers as for the artificial turf homes. Additionally, we selected sport fields having both natural grass and artificial turf: 1 in OC, 1 in MV, 4 in VEU, and 2 in DJ.
On July 25 and August 31, 2018, thermal ortho-imagery was acquired over the AOIs using a FLIR T1020 camera by Access Geographic, LLC. Te camera was mounted on a plane and acquired imagery with resolution of ca. 0.3 m x 0.3 m. Additionally, on July 25, temperature was also measured around the UC Riverside campus with the FLIR T1020 camera. Results from July 25 indicate that grass surfaces are significantly cooler than artificial turf and xeriscape. Figure 5 reports two temperatures measured between 3:30 and 4:00 PM at the UC Riverside campus on natural grass (average T =97.3 F), artificial turf (average T = 141.5 F) and xeriscape (gravel average T = 136 F and mulch average T = 152.4 F).
On July 25, noon air temperature in Riverside was 102 F. Termography at lawns for selected homes in the University Hills neighborhood (i.e., VEU AOI) had average temperature of 174.6F (artificial turf), 100.5F (natural grass), and 176.4F (xeriscape). On August 31, noon temperature was 90 F. Aerial thermography at the same homes recorded average temperatures of 151.9F (artificial turf), 74.9F (grass), and 143.0F (xeriscape).
Additional research is currently being conducted in 2019 and will be reported to TLI during the final report.
Ground measurements of thermal imagery at the University of California Riverside campus. 18 TPI Turf News September/October 2019
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