ENLIGHT – ENabling the anaLysIs of Global urban HeaT

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Benjamin Bechtel
• Subject Area: Physical Geography
• Term: from 2019 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 437467569

• Final Report Year: 2024

Final Report Abstract

Despite the new focus on cities as a critical scale for climate change management, there are inherent spatial, temporal and institutional scale mismatches between urban governance and climate adaptation and mitigation actions. First and foremost, climate-relevant urban data consistent in its coverage, scale and content are needed to support risk assessment and its management and to enable effective knowledge transfer between cities. The right data at the right scale are an essential prerequisite for developing fit-for-purpose urban climate policies. The absence of such data represents a serious impediment to progress. The goal of ENLIGHT was therefore to develop consistent urban databases that include 1) consistent urban landcover data, 2) urban climate effects and 3) the exploration of policy-relevant modelling capacities. The first objective is reached by the development of the LCZ Generator, which makes Local Climate Zone mapping fast and easy for any city of the world, and the subsequent development of a global map of Local Climate Zones. The second objective is achieved by the development of a multi-source database of citizen weather station data covering more than four years (starting 2019), and an analysis-ready surface urban heat island database, providing 1 km x 1 km Land Surface Temperature data from three satellite missions: ATSR-2 (1995- 2003), ATSR-3 (2002-2013), and Terra MODIS (2000-2018). Finally, the last objective has been achieved by integrating our developed urban data in a range of modelling tools (COSMO- CLM, WRF, SUEWS), and using the urban climate datasets to evaluate the accuracy of these modelling tools.

Publications

• A Weighted Accuracy Measure for Land Cover Mapping: Comment on Johnson et al. Local Climate Zone (LCZ) Map Accuracy Assessments Should Account for Land Cover Physical Characteristics that Affect the Local Thermal Environment. Remote Sens. 2019, 11, 2420. Remote Sensing, 12(11), 1769.
  Bechtel, Benjamin; Demuzere, Matthias & Stewart, Iain D.
  
• Can we use local climate zones for predicting malaria prevalence across sub-Saharan African cities?. Environmental Research Letters, 15(12), 124051.
  Brousse, O.; Georganos, S.; Demuzere, M.; Dujardin, S.; Lennert, M.; Linard, C.; Snow, R. W.; Thiery, W. & van, Lipzig N. P. M.
  
• Combining expert and crowd-sourced training data to map urban form and functions for the continental US. Scientific Data, 7(1).
  Demuzere, Matthias; Hankey, Steve; Mills, Gerald; Zhang, Wenwen; Lu, Tianjun & Bechtel, Benjamin
  
• CONUS-WIDE LCZ map and Training Areas. Figshare. 2020b.
  Demuzere M., Hankey S., Mills G., Zhang W., Lu T. & Bechtel B.
  
• Impact of Urban Canopy Parameters on a Megacity’s Modelled Thermal Environment. Atmosphere, 11(12), 1349.
  Varentsov, Mikhail; Samsonov, Timofey & Demuzere, Matthias
  
• Summer average urban-rural surface temperature differences do not indicate the need for urban heat reduction.
  Martilli, Alberto; Roth, Matthias; Chow, Winston T.L.; Demuzere, Matthias; Lipson, Mathew; Krayenhoff, E. Scott; Sailor, David; Nazarian, Negin; Voogt, James; Wouters, Hendrik; Middel, Ariane; Stewart, Iain D.; Bechtel, Benjamin; Christen, Andreas & Hart, Melissa A.
  
• Can local fieldwork help to represent intra-urban variability of canopy parameters relevant for tropical African climate studies?. Theoretical and Applied Climatology, 146(1-2), 457-474.
  Van de, Walle Jonas; Brousse, Oscar; Arnalsteen, Lien; Byarugaba, Disan; Ddumba, Daniel S.; Demuzere, Matthias; Lwasa, Shuaib; Nsangi, Gloria; Sseviiri, Hakimu; Thiery, Wim; Vanhaeren, Roxanne; Wouters, Hendrik & P.M., van Lipzig Nicole
  
• CrowdQC+—A Quality-Control for Crowdsourced Air-Temperature Observations Enabling World-Wide Urban Climate Applications. Frontiers in Environmental Science, 9.
  Fenner, Daniel; Bechtel, Benjamin; Demuzere, Matthias; Kittner, Jonas & Meier, Fred
  
• Evaluating the Urban Canopy Scheme TERRA_URB in the COSMO Model for Selected European Cities. Atmosphere, 12(2), 237.
  Garbero, Valeria; Milelli, Massimo; Bucchignani, Edoardo; Mercogliano, Paola; Varentsov, Mikhail; Rozinkina, Inna; Rivin, Gdaliy; Blinov, Denis; Wouters, Hendrik; Schulz, Jan-Peter; Schättler, Ulrich; Bassani, Francesca; Demuzere, Matthias & Repola, Francesco
  
• LCZ Generator: A Web Application to Create Local Climate Zone Maps. Frontiers in Environmental Science, 9.
  Demuzere, Matthias; Kittner, Jonas & Bechtel, Benjamin
  
• National Empirical Models of Air Pollution Using Microscale Measures of the Urban Environment. Environmental Science & Technology, 55(22), 15519-15530.
  Lu, Tianjun; Marshall, Julian D.; Zhang, Wenwen; Hystad, Perry; Kim, Sun-Young; Bechle, Matthew J.; Demuzere, Matthias & Hankey, Steve
  
• Quantifying Local and Mesoscale Drivers of the Urban Heat Island of Moscow with Reference and Crowdsourced Observations. Frontiers in Environmental Science, 9.
  Varentsov, Mikhail; Fenner, Daniel; Meier, Fred; Samsonov, Timofey & Demuzere, Matthias
  
• Using the dendro-climatological signal of urban trees as a measure of urbanization and urban heat island. Urban Ecosystems, 25(3), 849-865.
  Schneider, Christoph; Neuwirth, Burkhard; Schneider, Sebastian; Balanzategui, Daniel; Elsholz, Stefanie; Fenner, Daniel; Meier, Fred & Heinrich, Ingo
  
• Zhi C, Tang Y, Chang L, Demuzere M. The evolution of three-dimensional urban spatial form and its planning response to the surface heat island effect: Taking Beijing as an example. International Urban Planning 2021; 36 (05) (in Chinese)
  Zhi C., Tang Y., Chang L. & Demuzere M.
  
• 2000-2018 SUHII and Rural LST Monthly Means used in Sismanidis et al. 2022 [Data set]. In Remote Sensing (1.0.0, Vol. 14)
  Sismanidis P., Bechtel B., Perry M. & Ghent D.
  
• A global map of local climate zones to support earth system modelling and urban-scale environmental science. Earth System Science Data, 14(8), 3835-3873.
  Demuzere, Matthias; Kittner, Jonas; Martilli, Alberto; Mills, Gerald; Moede, Christian; Stewart, Iain D.; van Vliet, Jasper & Bechtel, Benjamin
  
• Estimation of mean radiant temperature in cities using an urban parameterization and building energy model within a mesoscale atmospheric model. Meteorologische Zeitschrift, 31(1), 31-52.
  Jin, Luxi; Schubert, Sebastian; Fenner, Daniel; Salim, Mohamed Hefny & Schneider, Christoph
  
• Global map of Local Climate Zones
  Demuzere M., Kittner J., Martilli A., Mills G., Moede C., Stewart I.D., van Vliet J. & Bechtel B.
  
• Lack of vegetation exacerbates exposure to dangerous heat in dense settlements in a tropical African city. Environmental Research Letters, 17(2), 024004.
  Van de Walle, J.; Brousse, O.; Arnalsteen, L.; Brimicombe, C.; Byarugaba, D.; Demuzere, M.; Jjemba, E.; Lwasa, S.; Misiani, H.; Nsangi, G.; Soetewey, F.; Sseviiri, H.; Thiery, W.; Vanhaeren, R.; Zaitchik, B. F. & van, Lipzig N. P. M.
  
• Modeling Large‐Scale Heatwave by Incorporating Enhanced Urban Representation. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 127(2).
  Patel, Pratiman; Jamshidi, Sajad; Nadimpalli, Raghu; Aliaga, Daniel G.; Mills, Gerald; Chen, Fei; Demuzere, Matthias & Niyogi, Dev
  
• Teaser Local Climate Zone maps extracted from the global map of Local Climate Zones
  Demuzere M., Kittner J., Martilli A., Mills G., Moede C., Stewart I.D., van Vliet J. & Bechtel B.
  
• The characteristic and transformation of 3D urban morphology in three Chinese mega-cities. Cities. 2022;131:103988.
  Cai, Zhi; Demuzere, Matthias; Tang, Yan & Wan, Yongman
  
• The Seasonality of Surface Urban Heat Islands across Climates. Remote Sensing, 14(10), 2318.
  Sismanidis, Panagiotis; Bechtel, Benjamin; Perry, Mike & Ghent, Darren
  
• Urban Climate Informatics: An Emerging Research Field. Frontiers in Environmental Science, 10.
  Middel, Ariane; Nazarian, Negin; Demuzere, Matthias & Bechtel, Benjamin
  
• Urban Heat Islands Significantly Reduced by COVID‐19 Lockdown. Geophysical Research Letters, 49(2).
  Liu, Zihan; Lai, Jiameng; Zhan, Wenfeng; Bechtel, Benjamin; Voogt, James; Quan, Jinling; Hu, Leiqiu; Fu, Peng; Huang, Fan; Li, Long; Guo, Zheng & Li, Jiufeng
  
• W2W: A Python package that injects WUDAPT’s Local Climate Zone information in WRF. Journal of Open Source Software, 7(76), 4432.
  Demuzere, Matthias; Argüeso, Daniel; Zonato, Andrea & Kittner, Jonas
  
• A hybrid 100-m global land cover dataset with Local Climate Zones for WRF (1.0.0) [Data set]
  Demuzere, M., He, C., Martilli, A. & Zonato, A.
  
• Crowdsourcing air temperature data for the evaluation of the urban microscale model PALM—A case study in central Europe. PLOS Climate, 2(8), e0000197.
  van der Linden, Lara; Hogan, Patrick; Maronga, Björn; Hagemann, Rowell & Bechtel, Benjamin
  
• dafenner/CrowdQCplus: v1.1.0 (v1.1.0)
  Fenner D. & Kittner J.
  
• Dynamically downscaled projection of urban outdoor thermal stress and indoor space cooling during future extreme heat. Urban Climate, 51, 101648.
  Jiang, Timothy; Krayenhoff, E. Scott; Voogt, James A.; Warland, Jon; Demuzere, Matthias & Moede, Christian
  
• Evaluation of 30 urban land surface models in the Urban‐PLUMBER project: Phase 1 results. Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, 150(758), 126-169.
  Lipson, Mathew J.; Grimmond, Sue; Best, Martin; Abramowitz, Gab; Coutts, Andrew; Tapper, Nigel; Baik, Jong‐Jin; Beyers, Meiring; Blunn, Lewis; Boussetta, Souhail; Bou‐Zeid, Elie; De Kauwe, Martin G.; de Munck, Cécile; Demuzere, Matthias; Fatichi, Simone; Fortuniak, Krzysztof; Han, Beom‐Soon; Hendry, Margaret A.; Kikegawa, Yukihiro ... & Pitman, Andy J.
  
• Mapping local climate zones for cities: A large review. Remote Sensing of Environment, 292, 113573.
  Huang, Fan; Jiang, Sida; Zhan, Wenfeng; Bechtel, Benjamin; Liu, Zihan; Demuzere, Matthias; Huang, Yuan; Xu, Yong; Ma, Lei; Xia, Wanjun; Quan, Jinling; Jiang, Lu; Lai, Jiameng; Wang, Chenguang; Kong, Fanhua; Du, Huilin; Miao, Shiqi; Chen, Yangyi & Chen, Jike
  
• Surface and canopy-layer urban heat island intensities in Europe – Quantifying differences in the diurnal cycle for three summer periods. 2023 Joint Urban Remote Sensing Event (JURSE), 1-4. IEEE.
  Krelaus, Leonie; Apfel, Joy; Bechtel, Benjamin & Sismanidis, Panagiotis
  
• Technical documentation for the hybrid 100-m global land cover dataset with Local Climate Zones for WRF (1.0.0)
  Demuzere, M., He, C., Martilli, A. & Zonato, A.
  
• Mapping urban form into local climate zones for the continental US from 1986–2020. Scientific Data, 11(1).
  Qi, Meng; Xu, Chunxue; Zhang, Wenwen; Demuzere, Matthias; Hystad, Perry; Lu, Tianjun; James, Peter; Bechtel, Benjamin & Hankey, Steve