Hierarchical Climate Zone as a tool for spatial planning – Case study of Wuhan, China

The Koppen Climate Classification system is one of the examples dissecting global climate process into uniform zones. Due to the fractal structure of geographic phenomenon, the classification of climate zones may be applied at different scales to promote further understanding of climate system at the human-environment interface. This research presents a workflow of classifying climate zones by using meteorological sensitive indicators. The research recommends the zones should be in hierarchical manner such that planning and design at different levels can benefit from the framework. In the case study, the research begins by investigating the proper scale of study by choosing the appropriate pixel size. Then an illustration of the workflow is presented by using 6 meteorological sensitive indicators derived by using remotes sensing and geographic information tools. Instead of using empirical standards, the K-mean clustering is applied to leverage the intrinsic structure of the data. Both intensive and less built environment are classified to different urban and rural climate zones. The classification shows that the zones possess distinctive climate properties. Jiong Wang • Qingming Zhan (Corresponding author) • Yinghui Xiao School of Urban Design, Wuhan University, 8 Dong Hu Nan Lu, Wuhan 430072, China Email: [email protected] Qingming Zhan. Email: [email protected] Yinghui Xiao. Email: [email protected] CUPUM 2015 136-Paper