Abstract
Future changes of land use and land cover (LULC) due to urbanization can cause variations in the frequency and severity of extreme weather events, affecting local climate and potentially worsening impact of such events. This work examines the local climatic impacts associated with projected urban expansion through simulations of rainfall and temperature over the rapidly growing city of the middle-eastern region in Tanzania. Simulations were conducted using a mesoscale Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model for a period of 10 days during the rainfall season in April 2018. The Global Forecasting System data of 0.25° resolution was used to simulate the WRF model in two-way nested domains at resolutions of 12 km and 4 km correspondingly. Urban and built-up areas under the current state, low urbanization (30%), and high urbanization (99%) scenarios were taken into account as LULC categories. As the urbanized area increased, daily mean, maximum and minimum air temperatures, as well as precipitation increased. Local circulation affected the spatial irregularities of air temperature and precipitation. Results imply that urbanization can amplify the impacts of future climate changes dramatically. These results can be applicable to the city planning to minimize the adverse effect of urbanization on temperature and precipitation.
Highlights
Worldwide in 2018, 55% of the world’s population was living in cities or urban areas, and future projection shows an increasing trend [1]
The principal focus of this study is to investigate the response of land use and land cover (LULC) change by urbanization to air temperature and precipitation, using a case study of 10 days during a rainy season period of April 2018
Urban and built-up areas in current LULC were limited to 0.1% in the domain in Dar es Salaam and Morogoro (Figure 4a; Table 3)
Summary
Worldwide in 2018, 55% of the world’s population was living in cities or urban areas, and future projection shows an increasing trend [1]. The effects of urbanization and the impacts of projected urban expansion on local climate in developing countries in Africa, such as Tanzania, have not so much been analyzed using high resolution meteorological models [13,14]. The effects of LULC change due to urbanization on local climate with the use of a dynamic downscaling approach were not investigated in Tanzania. There are only a few previous studies on the effects of urbanization on the local climate in developing cities in Africa, and very few that use projected urban expansion data [36,37]. There are limited studies that have use Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model to study the impact of urbanization in developing cities particular in Tanzania. The analyzed domain has a high mountainous region in the west, and a low coastal region iinntthheeeeaasstt..DDaarr-p-poorrttaannddDDAARRstsattaiotinosnasraeroevoevretrhethleowloewstetsotptogproagprhayphwyitwh ietlhevealetivoantoifo5n0omf 5t0o m60 tmo ,6K0ibma,hKaisbtahtiaonstiastioovnerismoivdedrlemtiodpdolgertaopphoygwraipthhyanweiltehvantioenleovfa1ti6o7nmo,fa1n6d7 mM,oarongdorMoosrtoatgiornoisstoavtieornhisghovtoepr ohgigrahpthoypwogitrhapahnyelwevitahtioan oelfe5v2a6timon(Toafb5l2e62;mFig(Tuarbel3e).; Figure 3)
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