No abstract

The World Urban Database and Access Portal Tools (WUDAPT) project has grown out of the need for better information on the form and function of cities globally. Cities are described using Local Climate Zones (LCZ), which are associated with a range of key urban climate model parameters and thus can serve as inputs to high resolution urban climate models. We refer to this as level 0 data for each city. The LCZ level 0 product is produced using freely available Landsat imagery, crowdsourced training areas from the community, and the open source SAGA software. This paper outlines the protocol by which LCZ maps generated by different members of the community are produced and evaluated. In particular, the quality assessment comprises cross-validation, review, and cross-comparison with other data sets. To date, the results from the different quality assessments show that the LCZ maps are generally of moderate quality, i.e. 50-60% overall

Cities are major drivers of environmental change at all scales and are especially at risk from the ensuing effects, which include poor air quality, flooding and heat waves. Typically, these issues are studied on a city-by-city basis owing to the spatial complexity of built landscapes, local topography and emission patterns. However, to ensure knowledge sharing and to integrate local-scale processes with regional and global scale modelling initiatives, there is a pressing need for a world-wide database on cities that is suited for environmental studies. In this paper we present a European database that has a particular focus on characterising urbanised landscapes. It has been derived using tools and techniques developed as part of the World Urban Database and Access Portal Tools (WUDAPT) project, which has the goal of acquiring and disseminating climate-relevant information on cities worldwide. The European map is the first major step toward creating a global database on cities that can be integrated with existing topographic and natural land-cover databases to support modelling initiatives.