scholarly journals Urban Landscape Change Analysis Using Local Climate Zones and Object-Based Classification in the Salt Lake Metro Region, Utah, USA

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (13) ◽  
pp. 1615 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jed Collins ◽  
Iryna Dronova
Keyword(s):  
Urban Areas ◽  
Salt Lake ◽  
Remote Sensing Data ◽  
Climate Trends ◽  
Local Cooling ◽  
Change Analysis ◽  
Study Region ◽  
Local Climate ◽  
Object Based ◽  
Local Climate Zones

Urban areas globally are vulnerable to warming climate trends exacerbated by their growing populations and heat island effects. The Local Climate Zone (LCZ) typology has become a popular framework for characterizing urban microclimates in different regions using various classification methods, including a widely adopted pixel-based protocol by the World Urban Database and Access Portal Tools (WUDAPT) Project. However, few studies to date have explored the potential of object-based image analysis (OBIA) to facilitate classification of LCZs given their inherent complexity, and few studies have further used the LCZ framework to analyze land cover changes in urban areas over time. This study classified LCZs in the Salt Lake Metro Region, Utah, USA for 1993 and 2017 using a supervised object-based analysis of Landsat satellite imagery and assessed their change during this time frame. The overall accuracy, measured for the most recent classification period (2017), was equal to 64% across 12 LCZs, with most of the error resulting from similarities among highly developed LCZs and non-developed classes with sparse or low-stature vegetation. The observed 1993–2017 changes in LCZs indicated a regional tendency towards primarily suburban, open low-rise development, and large low-rise and paved classes. However, despite the potential for local cooling with landscape transitions likely to increase vegetation cover and irrigation compared to pre-development conditions, summer averages of Landsat-derived top-of-atmosphere brightness temperatures showed a pronounced warming between 1992–1994 and 2016–2018 across the study region, with a 0.1–2.9 °C increase among individual LCZs. Our results indicate that future applications of LCZs towards urban change analyses should develop a stronger understanding of LCZ microclimate sensitivity to changes in size and configuration of urban neighborhoods and regions. Furthermore, while OBIA is promising for capturing the heterogeneous and multi-scale nature of LCZs, its applications could be strengthened by adopting more generalizable approaches for LCZ-relevant segmentation and validation, and by incorporating active remote sensing data to account for the 3D complexity of urban areas.

scholarly journals GIS-based delineation of local climate zones: The case of medium-sized Central European cities

2016 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 2-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Geletič ◽  
Michal Lehnert
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Expert Knowledge ◽  
Mapping Method ◽  
Rural Settlements ◽  
Climate Zones ◽  
Local Climate ◽  
Central European ◽  
European Cities ◽  
Local Climate Zones

Abstract Stewart and Oke (2012) recently proposed the concept of Local Climate Zones (LCZ) to describe the siting of urban meteorological stations and to improve the presentation of results amongst researchers. There is now a concerted effort, however, within the field of urban climate studies to map the LCZs across entire cities, providing a means to compare the internal structure of urban areas in a standardised way and to enable the comparison of cities. We designed a new GIS-based LCZ mapping method for Central European cities and compiled LCZ maps for three selected medium-sized Central European cities: Brno, Hradec Králové, and Olomouc (Czech Republic). The method is based on measurable physical properties and a clearly defined decision-making algorithm. Our analysis shows that the decision-making algorithm for defining the percentage coverage for individual LCZs showed good agreement (in 79–89% of cases) with areas defined on the basis of expert knowledge. When the distribution of LCZs on the basis of our method and the method of Bechtel and Daneke (2012) was compared, the results were broadly similar; however, considerable differences occurred for LCZs 3, 5, 10, D, and E. It seems that Central European cities show a typical spatial pattern of LCZ distribution but that rural settlements in the region also regularly form areas of built-type LCZ classes. The delineation and description of the spatial distribution of LCZs is an important step towards the study of urban climates in a regional setting.

scholarly journals Impact of urban environment on land surface temperature in local climate zones

2021 ◽  
Vol 333 ◽  
pp. 02008
Author(s):  
Anna Gosteva ◽  
Sofia Ilina ◽  
Aleksandra Matuzko
Keyword(s):  
Surface Temperature ◽  
Urban Environment ◽  
Land Surface Temperature ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Landsat 8 ◽  
Local Climate ◽  
Spatial Coverage ◽  
Artificial Environment ◽  
Local Climate Zones

The replacement of the natural landscape by artificial environment has led to changes in the ecosystem and physical properties of the surface, such as heat storage capacity, and thermal conductivity properties. These changes increase the difficulty of heat transfer between urban areas and the environment. Land surface temperature (LST) images from various satellites are widely used to represent urban thermal environments, which are more convenient and intuitive way. LST maps provide full spatial coverage, which distinguishes them from air temperature data obtained from meteorological stations. The study of LST according to the Landsat 8 data of Krasnoyarsk city over the past 10 years allowed the authors to talk about the observation of constant seasonal urban heat islands (UHI). For a more detailed consideration of the urban environment, this study further considers urban landscapes, thus the idea of local climate zone (LCZ) is introduced to study these diverse impacts in addition to the traditional map of LST. And analysis of the interaction of UHI and LCZ.

scholarly journals Impact of Urban Canopy Parameters on a Megacity’s Modelled Thermal Environment

Atmosphere ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 1349
Author(s):  
Mikhail Varentsov ◽  
Timofey Samsonov ◽  
Matthias Demuzere
Keyword(s):  
Urban Areas ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Thermal Environment ◽  
Weather Prediction ◽  
Urban Canopy ◽  
Anthropogenic Heat ◽  
Climate Modelling ◽  
Local Climate ◽  
Anthropogenic Heat Flux ◽  
Local Climate Zones

Urban canopy parameters (UCPs) are essential in order to accurately model the complex interplay between urban areas and their environment. This study compares three different approaches to define the UCPs for Moscow (Russia), using the COSMO numerical weather prediction and climate model coupled to TERRA_URB urban parameterization. In addition to the default urban description based on the global datasets and hard-coded constants (1), we present a protocol to define the required UCPs based on Local Climate Zones (LCZs) (2) and further compare it with a reference UCP dataset, assembled from OpenStreetMap data, recent global land cover data and other satellite imagery (3). The test simulations are conducted for contrasting summer and winter conditions and are evaluated against a dense network of in-situ observations. For the summer period, advanced approaches (2) and (3) show almost similar performance and provide noticeable improvements with respect to default urban description (1). Additional improvements are obtained when using spatially varying urban thermal parameters instead of the hard-coded constants. The LCZ-based approach worsens model performance for winter however, due to the underestimation of the anthropogenic heat flux (AHF). These results confirm the potential of LCZs in providing internationally consistent urban data for weather and climate modelling applications, as well as supplementing more comprehensive approaches. Yet our results also underline the continued need to improve the description of built-up and impervious areas and the AHF in urban parameterizations.

Mapping the local climate zones of urban areas by GIS-based and WUDAPT methods: A case study of Hong Kong

Urban Climate ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 567-576 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ran Wang ◽  
Chao Ren ◽  
Yong Xu ◽  
Kevin Ka-Lun Lau ◽  
Yuan Shi
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Climate Zones ◽  
Local Climate ◽  
Local Climate Zones

scholarly journals Mapping Local Climate Zones and Their Applications in European Urban Environments: A Systematic Literature Review and Future Development Trends

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 260
Author(s):  
Michal Lehnert ◽  
Stevan Savić ◽  
Dragan Milošević ◽  
Jelena Dunjić ◽  
Jan Geletič
Keyword(s):  
Urban Areas ◽  
Urban Climate ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Outdoor Thermal Comfort ◽  
Climate Zones ◽  
Local Climate ◽  
Local Climate Zones ◽  
Scale Modelling

In the light of climate change and burgeoning urbanization, heat loads in urban areas have emerged as serious issues, affecting the well-being of the population and the environment. In response to a pressing need for more standardised and communicable research into urban climate, the concept of local climate zones (LCZs) has been created. This concept aims to define the morphological types of (urban) surface with respect to the formation of local climatic conditions, largely thermal. This systematic review paper analyses studies that have applied the concept of LCZs to European urban areas. The methodology utilized pre-determined keywords and five steps of literature selection. A total of 91 studies were found eligible for analysis. The results show that the concept of LCZs has been increasingly employed and become well established in European urban climate research. Dozens of measurements, satellite observations, and modelling outcomes have demonstrated the characteristic thermal responses of LCZs in European cities. However, a substantial number of the studies have concentrated on the methodological development of the classification process, generating a degree of inconsistency in the delineation of LCZs. Recent trends indicate an increasing prevalence of the accessible remote-sensing based approach over accurate GIS-based methods in the delineation of LCZs. In this context, applications of the concept in fine-scale modelling appear limited. Nevertheless, the concept of the LCZ has proven appropriate and valuable to the provision of metadata for urban stations, (surface) urban heat island analysis, and the assessment of outdoor thermal comfort and heat risk. Any further development of LCZ mapping appears to require a standardised objective approach that may be globally applicable.

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