This dataset was collected in Los Angeles (California, US), Salt Lake City (Utah, US), and Tallahassee (Florida, US).
In each city, we studied residential yards that represented a range of household income and vegetative cover categories (quantified as NDVI). Within each census tract in each city, we chose three income categories (low, medium, and high) represented by the second, fourth, and sixth septiles of the median census tract income distribution in each city (S2, S4, and S6). This approach excluded the lowest and the highest ends of the income distribution and focused on three representative categories from the core of the distribution. Within each of these three income categories, we randomly chose three census tracts with low, medium, and high median NDVI (NDVI categories were evenly distributed across the range of urban land cover in each city). Thus, this dataset was collected in nine census tracts in each city that represented all combinations of low, medium, and high income and low, medium, and high greenness.
The data we collected includes turfgrass evapotranspiration (ET), atmospheric temperature and relative humidity, intensity of incoming solar radiation, grass surface temperature, volumetric water content of the soil at 05 cm, irrigation depth over a single irrigation event, and the frequency of lawn irrigation reported by the residents. ET was calculated from humidity measurements made by HOBO dataloggers every 1 second inside small chambers during 10 seconds after chamber placement.
For more details about site selection and data collection procedures, refer to Wilfong, M., Litvak, E., Grijseels, N.H., Hamilton, K., Kucera, D., Welsh, L., Endter-Wada, J., Jenerette, G.D., & Pataki, D.E. (2025). Irrigation rates and turfgrass evapotranspiration in cities with contrasting water availability. JAWRA Journal of the American Water Resources Association 61, e13236. doi:10.1111/1752-1688.13236
Variables and abbreviations used in the dataset:
S  septile
NDVI  Normalized Difference Vegetation Index
ET  evapotranspiration
VWC  volumetric water content of the soil
VPD  atmospheric vapor pressure deficit
T  atmospheric temperature
RH  atmospheric relative humidity