Find research datasets worth reusing

opencc-by-4.0Jul 2022View details →

Data from the paper "Learning to clusterize urban areas: two competitive approaches and an empirical validation"

Data for urban clustering used in the paper "Learning to clusterize urban areas: two competitive approaches and an empirical validation". We release two datasets for urban clustering based on data acquired in Santiago de Chile. The first dataset is computed at the level of urban blocks. The second dataset is computed at the level of individuals using a uniform sample of Santiago inhabitants. Both datasets comprises features based on social characteristics (e.g., SES), land use, and aesthetic visual perception of the city. The features of each data unit (blocks or individuals) are provided using row packing (each row is a data unit) in CSV files. We release PCA (Principal Components Analysis) features for both datasets.

opencc-by-4.0Jul 2022View details →

STRIDE Project D5: Overcoming Barriers to Freight and Logistics Firm Collaboration with Urban Planning

This dataset contains a list of Reddit posts and the corresponding threads for those posts resulting from targeted searches of four delivery-related subreddits conducted in Fall 2021. We used this dataset to understand driver practices in and views on delivering in urban areas and the challenges they face. It was downloaded using Reddit's API through the RedditExtractoR package for the R programming language. Re-use of this data is subject to Reddit API terms.

opencc-zeroJul 2022View details →

How does the selection of National Development Zones affect urban green innovation?

The launch of the selection process for National Development Zones (NDZs) marked a fundamental change in the construction of development zones, making it an essential position for local authorities to implement high-quality development. Based on the data of prefecture-level cities in China from 2000 to 2018, this paper examines the impact and mechanism of selecting NDZs on urban green innovation through a double-difference spatial durbin model using the selection of NDZs as a "quasi-natural experiment". The study finds that the selection of NDZs can promote green innovation in cities and has a significant window-radiating effect. The heterogeneity test results show that the implementation of the selection policy for development zones in non-old industrial cities, large and medium-sized cities, cities with easy access to transportation, and cities with high market orientation are more likely to promote urban green innovation. At the same time, the higher the level of government governance and the better the level of economic development of the development zones, the more it helps to realize the effects of the selection policy. The results of the mechanism test show that the selection of NDZs has a positive impact on urban green innovation through environmental regulation effects, resource allocation effects, and policy amplification effects. Data on development zones are sourced from the China Directory of Development Zones Audit and Announcement (2006) and the China Directory of Development Zones Audit and Announcement (2018 Edition)(http://www.gov.cn/xinwen/2018-03/03/content_5270330.htm); data on patents are sourced from the China Intellectual Property Office (https://www.cnipa.gov.cn/); Other city-level data from China City Statistical Yearbook, China Regional Economic Statistical Yearbook, China Statistical Yearbook (https://data.cnki.net/Yearbook/Navi?type=type&code=A). Our data is collated from the above sources using Python software.

opencc-by-4.0Oct 2021View details →

Replication data for: Occupations and their impact on the spreading of COVID-19 in urban communities

This dataset contains real-world COVID-19 human-to-human transmission network data. The data mimics how COVID-19 infections may have spread from one individual to another in Bucharest (Romania) during August 1st and October 31st, 2020. The information refers to COVID-19 patients (referees) and their contacts (referrals), i.e., the people they interacted with before being tested COVID-19 positive. The dataset is structured as an edge-list file (referee - referral ties). For each referee (referral), we provide the following attributes: sex (male/female), age, sector (public/private), a job in the medical sector (yes/no), ISCO-08 one-digit code, ISCO-08 two-digit code, ISCO-08 three-digit code, employability (active/non-active), age class (minor, adult, pensioner), confirmation month (when a patient was tested positive for COVID-19 infection), confirmation day (when a patient was tested positive for COVID-19 infection). The data were analyzed using relational hyperevent modeling (<a href="https://github.com/juergenlerner/eventnet">https://github.com/juergenlerner/eventnet</a>).  This dataset allows replication of the analysis reported in the manuscript entitled: Occupations and their impact on the spreading of COVID-19 in urban communities (Hâncean M-G, Lerner J, Perc M, Oană I, Bunaciu D-A, Stoica AA & Ghiță M-C).

opencc-zeroJul 2022View details →

Data from: Wild bee abundance declines with urban warming, regardless of floral density

As cities expand, conservation of beneficial insects is essential to maintaining robust urban ecosystem services such as pollination. Urban warming alters insect physiology, fitness, and abundance, but the effect of urban warming on pollinator communities has not been investigated. We sampled bees at 18 sites encompassing an urban warming mosaic within Raleigh, NC, USA. We quantified habitat variables at all sites by measuring air temperature, percent impervious surface (on local and landscape scales), floral density, and floral diversity. We tested the hypothesis that urban bee community structure depends on temperature. We also conducted model selection to determine whether temperature was among the most important predictors of urban bee community structure. Finally, we asked whether bee responses to temperature or impervious surface depended on bee functional traits. Bee abundance declined by about 41% per °C urban warming, and temperature was among the best predictors of bee abundance and community composition. Local impervious surface and floral density were also important predictors of bee abundance, although only large bees appeared to benefit from high floral density. Bee species richness increased with floral density regardless of bee size, and bee responses to urban habitat variables were independent of other life-history traits. Although we document benefits of high floral density, simply adding flowers to otherwise hot, impervious sites is unlikely to restore the entire urban pollinator community since floral resources benefit large bees more than small bees.

opencc-zeroJul 2022View details →

Provisioning latency increases closer to roads and is associated with species-specific reproductive success in two urban adapters

Most research on urban avian ecology has focused on population- and community-level phenomena, whereas fewer studies have examined how urbanization affects individual behavioral responses to a sudden and novel stimulus, and how those translate to fitness. We measured between-individual variation in provisioning latency in two urban adapters - great tits and blue tits - in response to an infrared camera installed in the nestbox, encountered when offspring in the nest were at the peak of food demand (9–10-days old). For each nestbox, we quantified urbanization as intensity in human activity, distance to road and proportion of impervious surface area. In both species, provisioning latency increased significantly closer to roads. Moreover, increased provisioning latency when exposed to a novel object was associated with higher reproductive success in great tits whose nestboxes were surrounded by high amounts of impervious surface. In contrast, increased provisioning latency was consistently associated with lower reproductive success in blue tits. Our results suggest that provisioning latency changes in relation to the environment surrounding the nest, and may be context- and species-specific when exposed to a novel stimulus, such as a novel object in the nest. To better understand the role of initial behavioral responses towards novelty across an individual's lifetime and, ultimately, its impact on fitness in the urban mosaic, further research explicitly testing different behavioral responses across the entire breeding cycle in wild model systems is needed.

Phenotypic changes of beak dimensions in urban birds of Switzerland

Humans' large influence on the environment has constructed many new ecological niches, such as in urban areas. Phenotypic changes, including morphological ones related to human influence are known from a small number of bird species. The amount of change in a given time period, i.e., the rate of change, may vary. Rates of change (both evolutionary and through phenotypic plasticity) are reportedly rapid in human-influenced settings, although this is disputed. We present new data on changes in beak dimensions and rates of change over historical time periods in four urban bird species (Common Chaffinch, European Greenfinch, Eurasian Blackbird, House Sparrow) from three Swiss cities (Basel, Bern, Geneva). Our study shows that beak dimensions have changed little in most investigated urban bird populations over the past century. Only in Genevan Blackbirds there was evidence for an increase in beak length over the past 65 years; Bernese Chaffinches appear to be trending toward a decrease in beak width over the past 55 years. Rates of change in our sample in comparison with literature records showed that compared to populations less influenced by humans, urban evolutionary rates appear to be similar. Although in accordance with previous findings about other urban bird species, our study exemplifies the difficulty to find universal patterns in tempo and mode of phenotypic evolution in urban areas, even when considering the same taxa. Our data contribute to the expanding field of urban evolutionary biology, which is particularly important regarding the growing urban habitats worldwide.

Nest-boxes alter the reproductive ecology of urban cavity-nesters in a species-dependent way

Human-provided nesting shelters such as nest-boxes mitigate the shortage of natural breeding sites. Since artificial nests are not where animals evolved and optimised their reproductive performance, it remains inconclusive if these are adequate substitutes, ensuring equivalent fitness returns while breeding. In particular, most knowledge on the ecology of cavity-nesting birds comes from nest-box populations, but no study has directly compared fitness consequences of breeding inside nest-boxes in relation to natural cavities in cities. We directly compare the reproductive performance, life-history trait variation and fitness consequences for two small passerines, blue and great tits, breeding in nest-boxes as opposed to natural cavities in an urban deciduous forest. We use a quasi-experimental setting to comprehend the conservation potential of these artificial cavities and to support/question generalisations stemming from nest-box studies. We show that the effects of cavity type vary between species: in blue tits, fitness proxies were negatively affected by nest-boxes (lower fledging success and fledgling numbers, longer time spent in the nest and later fledging date relative to natural cavities), while in great tits, the fitness proxies were unaffected by cavity type. Importantly, we detected accelerated incubation in both species breeding in nest-boxes. No differences in pre-hatching traits (lay date, clutch size, hatching rates) between cavity types suggest that the fitness deterioration occurred because of post-hatching effects. We highlight the ecological importance of old-growth tree stands, providing natural cavities for city-breeding animals and the need for quantifying alterations of reproductive ecology in other taxa using human-provided nests. Due to the detected cavity type-dependent variation in reproductive performance, we support the criticism regarding the unconditional extrapolation of evolutionary and ecological interpretations of nest-box studies to general populations.

opencc-by-4.0Apr 2022View details →

Urban stream rehabilitation in a densely populated Brazilian metropolis

These files contain the dataset of the article Urban stream rehabilitation in a densely populated Brazilian metropolis. Recurb_dataset.xlsx includes water quality, physical habitat and benthic macroinvertebrate assessments since 2003. The file survey_data_bank.sav contains the social perception assessment in 2008 and 2019. The article is available at https://www.doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2022.921934.

Urbanization shapes the relation between density and melanin-based colouration in bird communities

Growing urbanization increasingly influences ecosystems worldwide. While the effects of urban conditions within species (through either plastic or evolutionary responses) have been widely studied, their potential influences among species (through environmental filter), especially concerning their colouration, remain poorly known. Here, we investigated whether avian communities breeding inside and outside a major European city (Paris) differ with regards to melanin-based plumage colouration. Melanins are heritable pigments present in many taxa and have a series of unique properties that may allow coping with urban conditions. Using melanic-based colouration as an integrative phenotypic marker, we predicted (i) that the probability of breeding inside the city should increase with the intensity of species melanin-based colouration, (ii) that for species breeding both inside and outside the city, density should increase with the intensity of dark colouration inside the city, but not outside the city, and (iii) that species not breeding inside the city should not exhibit this positive relation between density and colouration. Our results confirmed these predictions. In addition, the density of species not breeding inside the city decreased with the darkness of their plumage. Altogether, these results suggest that bird species experience a balance between costs and benefits of melanin-based colouration shaped by environmental conditions. Both the environmental filtering and the urbanisation-shaped relation between density and colouration evidenced here are likely a general trend, however possibly modulated by additional local environmental conditions. Their importance may even be underestimated given the restricted geographical scale and the overall urbanization rate of the region studied. Further studies involving regions with contrasted environmental conditions should gain insight into the consequences of urbanization worldwide on traits associated with melanin-based colouration.

opengpl-2.0Aug 2022View details →

Data and code for "A decade of monitoring micropollutants in urban wet-weather flows: what did we learn?"

Data and code for publication Lena Mutzner, Viviane Furrer, Hélène Castebrunet, Ulrich Dittmer, Stephan Fuchs, Wolfgang Gernjak, Marie-Christine Gromaire, Andreas Matzinger, Peter Steen Mikkelsen, William R. Selbig, Luca Vezzaro, A decade of monitoring micropollutants in urban wet-weather flows: what did we learn? Water Research, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2022.118968 Data Micropollutants concentrations in µg/l (incl. heavy metals) for 77 wet-weather discharge sites (36 combined sewer overflows, 41 stormwater outlets). The provided data set is a collection of raw data sets based on publications referenced below. The data description is provided in the folder Data\AA_DataDescription.txt Abstract Urban wet-weather discharges from combined sewer overflows (CSO) and stormwater outlets (SWO) are a potential pathway for micropollutants (trace contaminants) to surface waters, posing a threat to the environment and possible water reuse applications. Despite large efforts to monitor micropollutants in the last decade, the gained information is still limited and scattered. In a metastudy we performed a data-driven analysis of measurements collected at 77 sites (683 events, 297 detected micropollutants) over the last decade to investigate which micropollutants are most relevant in terms of 1) occurrence and 2) potential risk for the aquatic environment, 3) estimate the minimum number of data to be collected in monitoring studies to reliably obtain concentration estimates, and 4) provide recommendations for future monitoring campaigns. We highlight micropollutants to be prioritized due to their high occurrence and critical concentration levels compared to environmental quality standards. These top-listed micropollutants include contaminants from all chemical classes (pesticides, heavy metals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, personal care products, pharmaceuticals, and industrial and household chemicals). Analysis of over 30,000 event mean concentrations shows a large fraction of measurements (> 50%) were below the limit of quantification, stressing the need for reliable, standard monitoring procedures. High variability was observed among events and sites, with differences between micropollutant classes. The number of events required for a reliable estimate of site mean concentrations (error bandwidth of 1 around the “true value) depends on the individual micropollutant. The median minimum number of events is 7 for CSO (2 to 31, 80%-interquantile) and 6 for SWO (1 to 25 events, 80%-interquantile). Our analysis indicates the minimum number of sites needed to assess global pollution levels and our data collection and analysis can be used to estimate the required number of sites for an urban catchment. Our data-driven analysis demonstrates how future wet-weather monitoring programs will be more effective if the consequences of high variability inherent in urban wet-weather discharges are considered.

Variety is the spice of life: flying-foxes exploit a variety of native and exotic food plants in an urban landscape mosaic

Generally, urbanization is a major threat to biodiversity; however, urban areas also provide habitats that some species can exploit. Flying-foxes (Pteropus spp.) are becoming increasingly urbanized; which is thought to be a result of increased availability and temporal stability of urban food resources, diminished natural food resources, or both. Previous research has shown that urban-roosting grey-headed flying-foxes (Pteropus poliocephalus) preferentially forage in human-modified landscapes. However, which land-use areas and food plants support its presence in urban areas is unknown. We tracked nine P. poliocephalus roosting in Adelaide, South Australia, between December 2019 and May 2020, using global positioning systems (GPS), to investigate how individuals used the urban landscape mosaic for feeding. The most frequently visited land-use category was "residential" (40% of fixes) followed by "road-side," "reserves" and "primary production" (13–14% each). However, "reserves" were visited four times more frequently than expected from their areal availability, followed by the "residential" and "road-side" categories that were visited approximately twice more than expected each; in contrast, the "primary production" category was visited approximately five times less than expected. These results suggest that while residential areas provide most foraging resources supporting Adelaide's flying-fox population, reserves contain foraging resources that are particularly attractive to P. poliocephalus. Primary production land was relatively less utilized, presumably because it contains few food resources. Throughout, flying-foxes visited an eclectic mixture of diet plants (49 unique species), with a majority of feeding fixes (63%) to locally indigenous Australian native species; however, in residential areas 53% of feeding visits were to non-locally indigenous species, vs only 13% in reserves. Flowering and fruiting phenology records of the food plants visited further indicated that non-locally indigenous species increase the temporal availability of foraging resources for P. poliocephalus in urban Adelaide. Our findings demonstrate the importance of residential areas for urban-roosting P. poliocephalus, and suggest that the anthropogenic mixture of food resources available in the urban landscape mosaic supports the species' year-round presence in urban areas. Our results further highlight the importance of conserving natural habitats within the urban landscape mosaic, and stress the need for accounting for wildlife responses to urban greening initiatives.

Data from: Does urbanization ameliorate the effect of endoparasite infection in kangaroo rats?

Urban development can fragment and degrade remnant habitat. Such habitat alterations can have profound impacts on wildlife, including effects on population density, parasite infection status, parasite prevalence, and body condition. We investigated the influence of urbanization on populations of Merriam's kangaroo rat (Dipodomys merriami) and their parasites. We predicted that urban development would lead to reduced abundance, increased parasite prevalence in urban populations, increased probability of parasite infection for individual animals, and decreased body condition of kangaroo rats in urban versus wildland areas. We live trapped kangaroo rats at 5 urban and 5 wildland sites in and around Las Cruces, NM, USA from 2013-2015, collected fecal samples from 209 kangaroo rats, and detected endoparasites using fecal flotation and molecular barcoding. Seven parasite species were detected, although only two, parasitic worms Mastophorus dipodomis and Pterygodermatites dipodomis, occurred frequently enough to allow for statistical analysis. We found no effects of urbanization on population density or probability of parasite infection. However, wildland animals infected with P. dipodomis had lower body condition scores than infected animals in urban areas or uninfected animals in either habitat. Our results suggest that urban environments may buffer Merriam's kangaroo rats from the detrimental impacts to body condition that P. dipodomis infections can cause.

Feasibility of urban bird and nest amount evaluation by the street view image virtual survey

The use of Street View maps in urban bird and nest surveys is worth exploring. Using Baidu Street-View (BSV) map, 49338 seamless spherical photos of 2741 sites were collected in Qingdao. Study evaluated the effectiveness and reproducibility of birds and nests using three observation angles and four experimenters. The BSV method and citizen science data were compared to evaluate their spatial distribution consistency. The BSV time machine is used to assess them time dynamics. The environment of the sampling sites with birds or nests was also surveyed information and evaluated the optimal environment. BSV photos can identify bird and nest, and different people had high repeatability on the evaluations. Bird nests selection middle-view BSV images could save 2/3 time used in the checks with >93% precision. Most citizen bird-watching sites overlapped or were close to nest hotspot areas from the BSV method and nests were more prevalent. The BSV time machine is suitable for investigating bird's nests. Nests and birds are more likely to be found in the leafless early spring, on large, traffic-dense coastal streets with complex vertical tree structures, and around tall buildings. For further urban bird research and conservation, this approach provides a pre-experimental and informative supplement.

A study of the spatial correlation network structure of urban innovation in Guangdong

Based on the modified gravity model, a spatial correlation network of innovation was constructed among cities in Guangdong, China. Social network analysis was employed to explore their evolution characteristics during 2009–2017. The results indicate that the innovation output of prefecture-level cities in Guangdong Province shows both spatial correlations and differences. Their network shows lower density, higher efficiency, and rigid stratification properties. Based on small cluster analysis, these cities are classified into four blocks, the members of which changed. In 2017, four well-defined subgroups formed, which are "bidirectional spillover plate", "main spillover plate", "net beneficial plate", and "agent plate". With this network, the geographical characteristics of the innovation capabilities and differences among the cities in Guangdong, as well as the different positions and roles of each city in the associated network, can be properly understood. Consequently, the transmission mechanisms and development strategies of innovation in Guangdong Province can be better explored.

opencc-by-4.0Jul 2021View details →

HSICityV2: Urban Scene Understanding via Hyperspectral Images

Light in all spectrum travel in the physical world. The trichromatism (RGB) human vision captures and understands it. Machine vision makes an analogy which use RGB camera for semantic segmentation and scene understanding. We argue that such machine vision suffers from metamerism, that different objects may appear in same RGB color while actually distinctive in spectrum. While learning based solutions, especially deep learning, have been heavily explored, they do not solve the fundamental physical limitation. In this paper, we propose to use Hyperspectral images (HSIs), which capture hundreds of consecutive narrow bands from the real visible world and therefore metamerism no longer exists. In short, we aim to 'see beyond human vision'. In practice, we introduce a novel large scale high quality HSI dataset for semantic segmentation in cityscapes. Namely, Hyperspectral City dataset. The dataset contains 1330 HSIs which are captured in typical urban driving scenes. Each HSI has 1889×1422 spatial resolution and 128 spectral channels ranged from 450nm to 950nm. The dataset provides semantic annotation at pixel level which is done manually by professional annotators. We believe this dataset enables a new direction for scene understanding.

Antipredator behaviors in urban settings: Ecological experimentation powered by citizen science

1. Animal behaviors are often modified in urban settings due to changes in species assemblages and interactions. The ability of prey to respond to a predator is a critical behavior, but urban populations may experience altered predation pressure, food supplementation, and other human-mediated disturbances that modify their responsiveness to predation risk and promote habituation. 2. Citizen-science programs generally focus on the collection and analysis of observational data (e.g., bird checklists), but there has been increasing interest in the engagement of citizen scientists for ecological experimentation. 3. Our goal was to implement a behavioral experiment in which citizen scientists recorded antipredator behaviors in wild birds occupying urban areas. In North America, increasing populations of Accipiter hawks have colonized suburban and urban areas and regularly prey upon birds that frequent backyard bird feeders. This scenario, of an increasingly common avian predator hunting birds near human dwellings, offers a unique opportunity to characterize antipredator behaviors within urban passerines. 4. For two winters, we engaged citizen scientists in Chicago, IL, USA to deploy a playback experiment and record antipredator behaviors in backyard birds. If backyard birds maintained their antipredator behaviors, we hypothesized that birds would decrease foraging behaviors and increase vigilance in response to a predator cue (hawk playback) but that these responses would be mediated by flock size, presence of sentinel species, body size, tree cover, and amount of surrounding urban area. 5. Using a randomized control–treatment design, citizen scientists at 15 sites recorded behaviors from 3,891 individual birds representing 22 species. Birds were more vigilant and foraged less during the playback of a hawk call, and these responses were strongest for individuals within larger flocks and weakest in larger-bodied birds. We did not find effects of sentinel species, tree cover, or urbanization. 6. By deploying a behavioral experiment, we found that backyard birds inhabiting urban landscapes largely maintained antipredator behaviors of increased vigilance and decreased foraging in response to predator cues. Experimentation in citizen science poses challenges (e.g., observation bias, sample size limitations, reduced complexity in protocol design), but unlike programs focused solely on observational data, experimentation allows researchers to disentangle the complex factors underlying animal behavior and species interactions.

Temporal data from camera trap captures of raccoons (Procyon lotor) and coyote (Canis latrans) across urban-rural gradient Michigan 2015-2020

Temporal data and trap success for raccoons (Procyon lotor) and coyotes (Canis latrans) across an urban-rural gradient in Michigan, from 2015 to 2020. These data are associated with the article "Temporal refuges of a subordinate carnivore vary across rural-urban gradient" in the journal Ecology and Evolution.

opencc-by-4.0Sep 2022View details →

Variations of the urban PM2.5 chemical components and corresponding light extinction for three heating seasons in the Guanzhong Plain, China

The basic data of the thesis “Variations of the urban PM2.5 chemical components and corresponding light extinction for three heating seasons in the Guanzhong Plain, China”.