This repository is supplementary to the paper "Sun, Y., Lindley, S., & Zheng, Z. (2026). Linking urban population exposure to heatwaves with land cover changes across the UK. Sustainable Cities and Society, 107349. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2026.107349". A related dataset is open access at: https://doi.org/10.48420/31996764.
The objectives of this project are:
- Validate CTSM's new functionality of transient urban land representation in a case study of the UK;
- Quantify heatwave metrics, including frequency, duration, season length, and intensity, with urban area weighted;
- Examine urban population exposure to heat.
The scripts listed below plot input data.
| Num. | Subject | Analysis | Visualization |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.1 | Land_cover_changes | Use Export.ipynb to calculate annual land cover changes | Figure.ipynb |
| 1.2 | Changes in urban land cover percentage | Use Export.ipynb to get urban fraction changes in UKCEH land cover maps (25 m) | Figure.ipynb |
| 1.3 | Heatwave threshold map | Not applicable | Figure.ipynb |
| 1.4 | Mapping population | Use Export.ipynb to get 0.05° population gridded data | Figure.ipynb |
The figure listed below is used to illustrate the concept and workflow in this study.
| Subject | Visualization |
|---|---|
| Conceptual diagram of urban population exposure to heatwaves | Figure |
| Workflow and data | Figure |
| Drivers of variations in urban heatwave exposure | Figure |
The scripts listed below process CNTL (do_transient_urban=.false.) and TRAN (do_transient_urban=.true.) simulation output and visualize them.
| Num. | Subject | Output data process | Visualization |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3.1 | Model validation against HadUK-Grid | Use Export.ipynb to get grid-level variables in comparison with the HadUK-Grid dataset | Figure.ipynb |
| 3.2 | Heatwave metrics weighted by urban areas | Use Export.ipynb to get heatwave metrics weighted by urban areas | Figure.ipynb |
| 3.3 | Mapping differences in heatwave metrics between TRAN and CNTL simulation | Use Export.ipynb to get differences in heatwave metrics | Figure.ipynb |
| 3.4 | Mapping differences in urban population exposure to heatwaves | Use Export.ipynb to get differences in urban exposure between 2003 and 2013. | Figure.ipynb |
| 3.5 | Mapping maximum temperature | Use Export.ipynb to get the maximum temperature in 2003 and 2013 | Figure.ipynb |
The scripts below are used to illustrate supplementary information.
| Num. | Subject | Analysis | Visualization |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4.1 | Climate zone classes | Not applicable | Figure.ipynb |
| 4.2 | Atmospheric forcing | Use Export.ipynb to get annual mean atmospheric forcings | Figure.ipynb |
| 4.3 | Spin-up | Use Export.ipynb to get monthly mean variables from spin-up simulations | Figure.ipynb |
The auxiliary datasets used for analysis are listed below.
| Num. | Dataset name | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 5.1 | Popchange: population grids for Britain (1 km) data | Link |
| 5.2 | UK boundary shapefile | Link |
| 5.3 | UK cities over 300k | Link |
- This work was supported by the Natural Environment Research Council [grant number UKRI1294].
- This work used the ARCHER2 UK National Supercomputing Service (https://www.archer2.ac.uk) and JASMIN, the UK’s collaborative data analysis environment (https://www.jasmin.ac.uk).
- Z.Z. appreciates the support provided by the academic start-up funds from the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at The University of Manchester.
- Y.S. is supported by Z.Z.'s academic start-up funds.
- We are indebted to Keith W. Oleson from NSF NCAR for providing suggestions on model configuration.