Using OpenStreetMap data to assist in the creation of LCZ maps

OpenStreetMap (OSM) is a well-known international collaborative project that provides free geographic data from and to citizens. The available data are so detailed and complete in some regions that its use has already been tested for creating land use and land cover maps. In this project, the data available in OSM are used to extract information about the Local Climate Zones (LCZs) proposed by Stewart and Oke (2012), in order to assist in the creation of LCZ maps. A methodology was developed that was applied to the region of Coimbra city (Portugal). First results indicate that valuable information can be obtained, particularly for the natural LCZ classes. However, the data available in OSM is shown to have less potential in differentiating between the urban LCZ classes. Future work will concentrate on the development of OSM data conversion into the urban LCZ classes and on the development of rules to combine the data extracted from OSM with the data obtained from remote sensing images.