Working with other NASA centers, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, state and local governments and city planners across the country, they are working to determine ways to make U.S. cities more habitable. Big cities show an upswing in ground level ozone, a major pollutant and health threat to human beings. On sweltering summer days, city power supplies are taxed by increased air conditioning use, as citizens struggle to beat the heat. The trapped, heated air can create weather patterns over urban areas, increasing rainstorms. The data collected by NASA helps determine strategies to reduce heat islands, such as installation of reflective roofing and paving materials to bounce thermal energy back into the atmosphere.
Education is the key.
Tests in other metropolitan areas are planned. The two species once inhabited forests along major streams flowing onto the floor of the northern San Joaquin Valley, but loss of habitat has reduced the populations of both species. Before development, the flood plain was livestock pasture with brush and trees for cover and escape. Conversion from pasture to cultivated fields eliminated hedgerows that provided travel corridors. During major storms, such as those in the winters of 1997 and 1998, Caswell Memorial State Park is flooded for prolonged periods so the rabbits and woodrats have nowhere to forage or seek shelter.