LCZ Generator: online tool to create Local Climate Zone maps

Abstract

<p>Since their introduction in 2012, Local Climate Zones (LCZs) emerged as a new standard for characterising urban landscapes, providing a holistic classification approach that takes into account micro-scale land-cover and associated physical properties. In 2015, as part of the community-based World Urban Database and Access Portal Tools (WUDAPT) project, a protocol was developed that enables the mapping of cities into LCZs, using freely available data and software packages, yet performed on local computing facilities. The ‘LCZ Generator’ described here further simplifies this process, providing an online platform that maps a city of interest into LCZs, solely expecting a valid training area file and some metadata as input. The tool integrates the state-of-the-art of LCZ mapping, and simultaneously provides an automated accuracy assessment, training data derivatives and a novel approach to identify suspicious training areas. In addition, this development will ease the dissemination of maps and metadata. We anticipate this development will significantly ease the accessibility and workflow of researchers and practitioners interested in using the LCZ framework for a variety of urban-induced human and environmental impacts.</p>