A systematic review of GIS-based local climate zone mapping studies

The local climate zone (LCZ) framework has been widely applied to generate LCZ maps for understanding urban thermal environments. LCZ mapping has two research streams. The remote sensing stream has developed rapidly through organized effort. By contrast, the geographic information system (GIS) stream is characterized by slow progress through individual explorations. Major obstacles in the GIS stream include two key issues in implementing the original LCZ framework: lack of data and unclear method specifications. Further development in this stream requires a comprehensive summary of previous studies and their diverse methods to improve understanding and address the aforementioned issues. The current work aims to fill this research gap by systematically reviewing 16 GIS-based LCZ mapping works that represent 24 important studies in the field. This review summarizes a general LCZ mapping process from the reviewed studies. The process has six steps: data collection, basic spatial unit definition, urban canopy parameter calculation, LCZ classification, post-processing, and performance evaluation. Diverse methods are examined and compared in each step, and major challenges and new opportunities are identified from these studies. This review provides a clear depiction of the GIS stream and suggests collaborations among stakeholders to contribute to the further development of this stream and discusses the implication of this technique in urban planning and policy making to facilitate sustainable urban development.