The main intention of this project was to produce maps to enable planners to consider aspects in their planning procedures. Comparable studies, mainly in german-speaking countries, use so-called 'synthetic climate function maps' (Synthetische Klimafunktionskarten) often also named 'climatope maps'. The classic concepts of climatope extraction comprises some limits we tried to overcome by developing an improved method of digital extraction of climatopes.

The determination of climatopes was carried out by a digital intersection of the classified spatial distribution of areal types and ventilation classes. Climatopes are therefore the spatial combination of areal types and ventilation classes resulting in a  high degree of climatope differentiation.

Our study site shows a high number of rural climatopes, because large parts of the involved Swiss canton Basel-Landschaft are situated in the Swiss Jura. Settlements are mainly situated at the bottom of larger valleys, which are therefore dominated by urban climatopes.

This new concept proves to be transferable to other study areas, since it is based on the analysis of climatic factors and not depending on the local distribution and variation of climatic elements. Every single step of the whole concept is based on objective and transparent classification rules leading to a high degree of automation. The ventilation classes and areal types might partially change depending on the land-use and topography of the study area, but the concept behind is valid in general.