- Site description -

The measurements has started since May 2001 in a low-storied residential area in Kugahara, Tokyo, Japan (35^o34’N, 139^o41’E). The instruments were attached to a 29-m tower installed in a backyard to one of the homes. The residential area mainly consists of densely built-up houses, paved roads, and small playgrounds. According to our image analysis over the area using Geographic Information System (GIS) data produced by Tokyo metropolitan government, within 500-m of the tower the percentage of ground area covered by buildings was 32.6% and the total green cover ratio was about 20.6%. The vegetation is scattered in backyards and playgrounds in the residential area. Gentle terrain and rows of houses homogeneously extends at least 1-km to the south, west, and north from the tower. The terrain within 200-m to the east is gently slanting down with an inclination angle of 5.7^o. At the foot of the slope, light industrial factories and higher multistory apartments are mixed with residential homes but their roof level is almost same as the canopy top around the tower. By averaging the heights of 660 buildings within 500-m of the tower, we determined that the mean building height is 7.3 m and the standard deviation is about ±1.3 m.

Table 1  Land cover properties at the study site.

Std is the standard deviation.