New 30 m resolution Hong Kong climate, vegetation, and topography rasters indicate greater spatial variation than global grids within an urban mosaic

<p>The recent proliferation of high-quality global gridded environmental datasets has spurred a renaissance of studies in many fields, including biogeography. However, these data, often 1&thinsp;km at the finest scale available, are too coarse for applications such as precise designation o...

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Main Authors: B. Morgan, B. Guénard
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Copernicus Publications 2019-07-01
Series:Earth System Science Data
Online Access:https://www.earth-syst-sci-data.net/11/1083/2019/essd-11-1083-2019.pdf
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author B. Morgan
B. Guénard
author_facet B. Morgan
B. Guénard
author_sort B. Morgan
collection DOAJ
description <p>The recent proliferation of high-quality global gridded environmental datasets has spurred a renaissance of studies in many fields, including biogeography. However, these data, often 1&thinsp;km at the finest scale available, are too coarse for applications such as precise designation of conservation priority areas and regional species distribution modeling, or purposes outside of biology such as city planning and precision agriculture. Further, these global datasets likely underestimate local climate variations because they do not incorporate locally relevant variables. Here we describe a comprehensive set of 30&thinsp;m resolution rasters for Hong Kong, a small tropical territory with highly variable terrain where intense anthropogenic disturbance meets a robust protected area system. The data include topographic variables, a Normalized Difference Vegetation Index raster, and interpolated climate variables based on weather station observations. We present validation statistics that convey each climate variable's reliability and compare our results to a widely used global dataset, finding that our models consistently reflect greater climatic variation. To our knowledge, this is the first set of published environmental rasters specific to Hong Kong. We hope this diverse suite of geographic data will facilitate future environmental and ecological studies in this region of the world, where a spatial understanding of rapid urbanization, introduced species pressure, and conservation efforts is critical. The dataset (Morgan and Guénard, 2018) is accessible at <a href="https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.6791276">https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.6791276</a>.</p>
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spelling doaj.art-9f4dbd8cdd7c4a408e2f57377a0ad9142022-12-21T19:42:25ZengCopernicus PublicationsEarth System Science Data1866-35081866-35162019-07-01111083109810.5194/essd-11-1083-2019New 30&thinsp;m resolution Hong Kong climate, vegetation, and topography rasters indicate greater spatial variation than global grids within an urban mosaicB. MorganB. Guénard<p>The recent proliferation of high-quality global gridded environmental datasets has spurred a renaissance of studies in many fields, including biogeography. However, these data, often 1&thinsp;km at the finest scale available, are too coarse for applications such as precise designation of conservation priority areas and regional species distribution modeling, or purposes outside of biology such as city planning and precision agriculture. Further, these global datasets likely underestimate local climate variations because they do not incorporate locally relevant variables. Here we describe a comprehensive set of 30&thinsp;m resolution rasters for Hong Kong, a small tropical territory with highly variable terrain where intense anthropogenic disturbance meets a robust protected area system. The data include topographic variables, a Normalized Difference Vegetation Index raster, and interpolated climate variables based on weather station observations. We present validation statistics that convey each climate variable's reliability and compare our results to a widely used global dataset, finding that our models consistently reflect greater climatic variation. To our knowledge, this is the first set of published environmental rasters specific to Hong Kong. We hope this diverse suite of geographic data will facilitate future environmental and ecological studies in this region of the world, where a spatial understanding of rapid urbanization, introduced species pressure, and conservation efforts is critical. The dataset (Morgan and Guénard, 2018) is accessible at <a href="https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.6791276">https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.6791276</a>.</p>https://www.earth-syst-sci-data.net/11/1083/2019/essd-11-1083-2019.pdf
spellingShingle B. Morgan
B. Guénard
New 30&thinsp;m resolution Hong Kong climate, vegetation, and topography rasters indicate greater spatial variation than global grids within an urban mosaic
Earth System Science Data
title New 30&thinsp;m resolution Hong Kong climate, vegetation, and topography rasters indicate greater spatial variation than global grids within an urban mosaic
title_full New 30&thinsp;m resolution Hong Kong climate, vegetation, and topography rasters indicate greater spatial variation than global grids within an urban mosaic
title_fullStr New 30&thinsp;m resolution Hong Kong climate, vegetation, and topography rasters indicate greater spatial variation than global grids within an urban mosaic
title_full_unstemmed New 30&thinsp;m resolution Hong Kong climate, vegetation, and topography rasters indicate greater spatial variation than global grids within an urban mosaic
title_short New 30&thinsp;m resolution Hong Kong climate, vegetation, and topography rasters indicate greater spatial variation than global grids within an urban mosaic
title_sort new 30 thinsp m resolution hong kong climate vegetation and topography rasters indicate greater spatial variation than global grids within an urban mosaic
url https://www.earth-syst-sci-data.net/11/1083/2019/essd-11-1083-2019.pdf
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