Journal of Emerging Scholarship

Urban heat islands (UHIs) occur when developed areas exhibit significantly higher temperatures than surrounding rural or vegetated areas due to human-made surfaces that retain heat (Environmental Protection Agency, 2024). While most studies focus on large cities, our project investigates UHIs at Anne Arundel Community College (AACC), on its suburban campus, building on the work done in 2024 by the Research Intensive Summer Experience (RISE) team. They found that forested areas at AACC have significantly lower temperatures than parking lots (Bah et al., 2025). Further, they found that grass fields, which make up 16% of AACC’s Arnold campus, have temperatures that are nearly indistinguishable from parking lot temperatures. The current study aimed to quantify the relationship between tree canopy size and heat island mitigation. While our results show that any tree coverage provides some temperature reduction, the full benefit of tree coverage begins approximately 5 to 15 meters into the forest. Our findings provide a framework for AACC’s policy and land planning that can help mitigate the impact of UHIs.