Constructing monthly precipitation and temperature fields over Belgium since 1900 including effects of land use changes

In the past century, global climate change and intense land-use modifications – such as the conversion of forests to agriculture or built-up areas – have jointly shaped local climate conditions in many countries across the globe. Reconstructing climate at kilometric scales requires accounting for the local impacts of forest conversions and other land-use changes. 

We tackle this challenge by combining global climate products and historical observation timeseries to create 1x1 km monthly precipitation and temperature fields including the effects of forests and urbanization in Belgium in the 20th and 21st centuries. Station data comprise monthly averages of daily minimum and maximum temperature – 18 series starting in 1880 and 45 starting in 1954 – and monthly cumulative precipitation amounts – 28 starting in 1880 and 143 starting in 1951. Single-point series are interpolated with kriging, and as the stations are located in open, grassy locations, the interpolated fields are assumed to be representative of a rural landscape. The impacts of forests and urban environments on temperature are added at different time steps using historical cadastral data and land cover maps.

This study is part of the project FOURCAST, which investigates how Belgian biodiversity has changed since 1900, linking shifts to local changes in the climatic environment. We believe that such a long-term gridded climatological dataset holds potential for various other research applications, including public health, agriculture, and building heritage.