A METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH TO THE DEVELOPMENT AND MAPPING OF THEURBAN LAND COVER OF THE CITY OF SOFIA

Abstract

The present study presents for the first time the development of a methodology for the creation of an urban land cover of the city of Sofia, which will serve the needs of the study of the local climate zones of the Bulgarian capital. For the development of the nomenclature of the land cover, data from an orthophoto image, the Urban Atlas and cadastre of the city of Sofia were used, using a number of geospatial techniques. The end result is a classification of various objects from the urban landscape of the Bulgarian capital, divided into 11 classes and 22 sub-classes, which form the main mesoclimatic factors in the city. The results show a large percentage of low-rise buildings built of bricks with dark rooftops, which implies higher temperatures in the city and the formation of urban heat islands of different sizes and a big percentage of industrial sites (38.3%) which also affects the quality of the atmospheric air in the city of Sofia.