Best practice for adding high-resolution urban morphology data into WRF (UCM/BEP) via WPS

[sarah.navin]

Hi everyone,

I’m working with WRF v4.6.0 + WPS 4.6 and running simulations with SLUCM / BEP over a metropolitan area.

I have high-resolution urban morphology data (building height, plan area fraction, street width) derived from GIS sources.

My main confusion is about the correct workflow to ingest custom urban parameters into WRF, specifically:

1. Should custom urban fields (e.g., mean building height, PAF, FRC_URB2D) be introduced through WPS geogrid tables, or is modifying URB_PARAM.nc the recommended approach?
2. If using geogrid, which urban fields are actually read by SLUCM vs BEP in WRF 4.6, and which are ignored?
3. Is there an example of a minimal but complete set of urban canopy variables required for BEP to function correctly?

I’m aiming for a physically consistent setup rather than trial-and-error tuning.

Any guidance, documentation pointers, or real-world examples would be highly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.