Generating Urban Canopy Paramater for Global Cities Using a Data-Driven Approach

The overall aims of the World Urban Database and Access Portal Tools (WUDAPT) project are:
· to acquire and make accessible coherent and consistent descriptions and information on urban form and function relevant to climate weather, and environment studies on a worldwide basis,
· to provide a portal with tools that extract relevant urban parameters and properties for models and for model applications at appropriate scales for various climate, weather, environment, and urban planning purposes.
Currently, the global database available via WUDAPT is based on Local Climate Zones (LCZs), which uses 10 categories to describe the urban landscape. Each LCZ type is linked with a range of urban canopy parameter (UCP) values that can be used to support climate modelling. However, these UCP values are imprecise and invariant from city to city. Increasingly, high-resolution global databases are becoming available that can provide city-specific details on urban morphology especially. This research uses a ‘big data’ approach to generate a detailed (<1km2) UCP dataset for global cities using information from various sources including satellites, UAVs, and census data. Due to the different data availability for global cities, this research conducts a method that can calculate UCPs based on single or multiple datasets. The paper will present these methods and evaluate the results using independent sources. The urban data generated will represent an enhancement of the existing WUDAPT data.