Dataset Information

Assessment of Local Climate Zone Classification Maps of Cities in China and Feasible Refinements.

ABSTRACT: Local climate zone (LCZ) maps that describe the urban surface structure and cover with consistency and comparability across cities are gaining applications in studies of urban heat waves, sustainable urbanization and urban energy balance. Following the standard World Urban Database and Access Portal Tools (WUDAPT) method, we generated LCZ maps for over 20 individual cities and 3 major economic regions in China. Based on the confusion matrices constructed by manual comparison between the predicted classes and ground truths, we highlight the following: (1) notable variation in overall accuracies (i.e., 60%-89%) among cities were observed, which was mainly due to class incompleteness and distinct proportions of natural landscapes; (2) building classes in selected cities were poorly classified in general, with a mean accuracy of 48%; (3) the sparsely built class (i.e., LCZ 9), which is rare in the selected Chinese cities, had the lowest classification accuracy (32% on average), and the class of low plants had the widest accuracy range. The findings indicate that the standard WUDAPT method alone is insufficient for generating LCZ products that demonstrate practical value, especially for built-up areas in China, and the misclassification is largely caused by the lack of building height data. This result is confirmed by a refinement test, in which the urban DEM retrieved from Sentinel-1 data with radar interferometry technique was used. The study shows a detailed and comprehensive assessment of applying the WUDAPT method in China and a feasible refinement strategy to improve the classification accuracy, especially for the built-up types of LCZ. The study could serve as a useful reference for generating quality-ensured LCZ maps. This study also examines and explores the relationship between socio-economic status and LCZ products, which is essential for further implementations.

SUBMITTER: Ren C

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6906403 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Assessment of Local Climate Zone Classification Maps of Cities in China and Feasible Refinements.

Ren Chao C Cai Meng M Li Xinwei X Zhang Lei L Wang Ran R Xu Yong Y Ng Edward E

Scientific reports 20191211 1

Local climate zone (LCZ) maps that describe the urban surface structure and cover with consistency and comparability across cities are gaining applications in studies of urban heat waves, sustainable urbanization and urban energy balance. Following the standard World Urban Database and Access Portal Tools (WUDAPT) method, we generated LCZ maps for over 20 individual cities and 3 major economic regions in China. Based on the confusion matrices constructed by manual comparison between the predicte ...[more]

PMID: 31827216

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Project description:Urban forms and functions have critical impacts on urban heat islands (UHIs). The concept of a "local climate zone" (LCZ) provides a standard and objective protocol for characterizing urban forms and functions, which has been used to link urban settings with UHIs. However, only a few structure types and surface cover properties are included under the same climate background or only one or two time scales are considered with a high spatial resolution. This study assesses multi-temporal land surface temperature (LST) characteristics across 18 different LCZ types in Beijing, China, from July 2017 to June 2018. A geographic information system-based method is employed to classify LCZs based on five morphological and coverage indicators derived from a city street map and Landsat images, and a spatiotemporal fusion model is adopted to generate hourly 100-m LSTs by blending Landsat, Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), and FengYun-2F LSTs. Then, annual and diurnal cycle parameters and heat island and cool island (HI or CI) frequency are linked to LCZs at annual, seasonal, monthly, and diurnal scales. Results indicate that: (1) the warmest zones are compact and mid and low-rise built-up areas, while the coolest zones are water and vegetated types; (2) compact and open high-rise built-up areas and vegetated types have seasonal thermal patterns but with different causes; (3) diurnal temperature ranges are the highest for compact and large low-rise settings but the lowest for water and dense or scattered trees; and (4) HIs are the most frequent summertime and daytime events, while CIs occur primarily during winter days, making them more or less frequent for open or compact and high- or low-rise built-up areas. Overall, the distinguishable LSTs or UHIs between LCZs are closely associated with the structure and coverage properties. Factors such as geolocation, climate, and layout also interfere with the thermal behavior. This study provides comprehensive information on how different urban forms and functions are related to LST variations at different time scales, which supports urban thermal regulation through urban design.

Dataset Information

Assessment of Local Climate Zone Classification Maps of Cities in China and Feasible Refinements.

Publications

Assessment of Local Climate Zone Classification Maps of Cities in China and Feasible Refinements.

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