Estimation of Outdoor Thermal Comfort by Integrating Landsat derived LULC to WRF-UCM Model over a Metropolitan City of India

Estimation of Outdoor Thermal Comfort by Integrating Landsat derived LULC to WRF-UCM Model over a Metropolitan City of India | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article Estimation of Outdoor Thermal Comfort by Integrating Landsat derived LULC to WRF-UCM Model over a Metropolitan City of India P. S. Hari Prasad, A. N. V. Satyanarayana This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-6468622/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Published Journal Publication published 12 Jul, 2025 Read the published version in Theoretical and Applied Climatology → Version 1 posted 12 You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Cities are experiencing drastic changes in land use and land cover (LULC), leading to increased thermal discomfort in urban and surrounding areas, which plays an important role in understanding the impact on public health. Sustainable cities aim to incorporate strategies that effectively manage changes in the regions of various degrees of outdoor thermal comfort, enhancing overall urban living conditions. Accurate representation of the spatial distribution of LULC in mesoscale models is essential for improved simulations of urban meteorological parameters and subsequent estimation of outdoor thermal comfort. In this study, an attempt has been made to reconstruct LULC along with surface parameters such as GVF and albedo using Landsat 8 satellite imageries. These data are compared with existing ISRO LULC data over a metropolitan city, Hyderabad (17.3850° N, 78.4867° E) during 2019. Upon validating with Google Earth Maps, the reconstructed LULC exhibits significant improvement in representing moderate vegetation, urban forest, and bare lands compared to ISRO LULC. A high-resolution mesoscale model WRF-UCM has been employed to simulate meteorological parameters as well as estimate the Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI) during the summer and winter seasons of 2019, using these two LULC data sets and validated with meteorological observations and satellite products. The reconstructed LULC reveals a significant rise in air temperature by 1 ℃, 4 ℃ in Land Surface temperature, and UTCI by 2 ℃ over the dense urban region. The results reveal significant improvement in the assessment of LST and the intensity of outdoor thermal comfort. The presented study emphasizes the importance of accurately representing LULC in estimating outdoor thermal comfort and implementing mitigation strategies to improve the sustainability of the cities in terms of comfort and health. Reconstructed LULC UTCI WRF-UCM Outdoor Thermal comfort Full Text Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Published Journal Publication published 12 Jul, 2025 Read the published version in Theoretical and Applied Climatology → Version 1 posted Editorial decision: Revision requested 23 May, 2025 Reviews received at journal 23 May, 2025 Reviews received at journal 15 May, 2025 Reviews received at journal 08 May, 2025 Reviewers agreed at journal 05 May, 2025 Reviewers agreed at journal 05 May, 2025 Reviewers agreed at journal 05 May, 2025 Reviewers agreed at journal 05 May, 2025 Reviewers invited by journal 05 May, 2025 Editor assigned by journal 21 Apr, 2025 Submission checks completed at journal 21 Apr, 2025 First submitted to journal 17 Apr, 2025 You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-6468622","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":452311691,"identity":"d13a8b54-5c9d-4b27-a954-9bdc553be5b8","order_by":0,"name":"P. S. 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