Mapping Local Climate Zones for a Worldwide Database of the Form and Function of Cities

Progress in urban climate science is severely restricted by the lack of useful information that describes aspects of the form and function of cities at a detailed spatial resolution. To overcome this shortcoming we are initiating an international effort to develop the World Urban Database and Access Portal Tools (WUDAPT) to gather and disseminate this information in a consistent manner for urban areas worldwide. The first step in developing WUDAPT is a description of cities based on the Local Climate Zone (LCZ) scheme, which classifies natural and urban landscapes into categories based on climate-relevant surface properties. This methodology provides a culturally-neutral framework for collecting information…

• NA
  National Aeronautics and Space Administration
• UC
  University College Dublin
• DZ
  Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt
• UG
  U.S. Geological Survey
• AN
  Argonne National Laboratory