Land-use categories

[Aurora_LagosD]

Hello WRF community,

I would like to make changes in the spatial distribution of land use in WRF. Instead of using MODIS, I will use an updated national product for Chile (LU-CL). For this purpose, I will modify the LU_INDEX variable. Obviously, I will use the same categories as MODIS (IGBP-Modified MODIS 20-category). My questions are:

1. Do I only need to change the LU_INDEX variable in the wrfinput file?

2. What surface properties are defined by the land use categories? I could not find any documentation about it.

 

[kwerner]

Hi,
Apologies for the delay in response.

1. Do I only need to change the LU_INDEX variable in the wrfinput file?

I believe you may need to modify a couple other variables, such as LANDMASK and LANDUSEF. Take a look at this previous post that discusses something similar. And depending on the physics options you plan to use, you may need to adjust the *.TBL files in the WRF directory. Take a look at the physics chapter of the WRF Users' Guide. Scroll down a bit and look for the section called "LSM Tables."

2. What surface properties are defined by the land use categories? I could not find any documentation about it.

I believe this information can be found in whichever *.TBL file is used (depending on your surface physics options). Those are text files, so you can look at them to see how things are categorized.