Methods

I Digital Extraction of Climatopes as the Basis of the Climate Analysis Map

A new definition for 'climatopes' was designed overcoming the limits of the application of this term inherited so far. By introducing the concept of areal types, adequate information on land-use could be obtained, which is essential for the new definition of the climatopes. The second component absolutely necessary for the delineation of climatopes was the description of the dominating ventilation situations in the study site, summarizing the combined influencing factors of terrain features and land-use structures on wind field and urban ventilation.

The new definition of climatopes is therefore solely based on climatic factors like terrain and land-use and not on climatic elements like air temperature or wind speed. Validation with various quality assessment procedures confirm the accuracy and applicability of the concept for the requirements of the planning authorities. Every single step was carried out using digital methods and objective criteria independent of the person dealing with and therefore guaranteeing transparency and applicability for other similar studies.

The graph shows the methodology used to achieve the extraction of climatopes. Three basic concepts were developed or improved in this study. For further information providing more details about single project steps and the corresponding images click on some of the boxes of the flow scheme or the corresponding expressions on bottom of this page.

[Satellite-based land-use pixel classes]                                                              [Digital terrain model]  

[Areal types]                                                         [Ventilation classes]

[Climatopes]

II Digital Extraction of site-specific Planning recommendations

An automated, rule-based numerical classification scheme was also used to assign spatially distributed planning objectives to the study site supplied with site-specific planning recommendations . The digital extraction is based on the results of the climate assessment. Concerning the planning recdomendations different strategies were followed for example the improvement of critical situations dealing with climatic impacts or air quality, the protection of sensible areas, the investigation of risks and their reduction.

Together with the involved planners three main problem-areas representing the most important conflict-situations for urbanized areas were established including ventilation, air quality and thermal situation. Each problem-area contains two to four planning objectives to identify potential conflict areas already existing or arising as a consequence of future land-use changes. The spatial assignment of planning objectives individually assigned with planning measures guarantees independency from conflict-specific circumstances because not alle measures might be applicable depending on the site- and situation-specific conditions.

Areas supplied with a planning objective own an increased probability to be concerned by the corresponding problem situation, but the stochastic approach doesn't exclude conflicts in unclassified areas of the study site.

The above mentioned methodology offers several advantages including transparency and objectivity which are essential for the acceptance of the results and their employment in the work of the planning authorities cause planning affairs are oftn political issues. 

For further information concerning the problem areas and some examples click on the corresponding area in the table!