LCZ4py 0.1.0

Python port of LCZ4r — tools for downloading, processing, and visualizing Local Climate Zone (LCZ) maps (Stewart & Oke 2012).

LCZ4py

Python port of LCZ4r — tools for downloading, processing, and visualizing Local Climate Zone (LCZ) maps (Stewart & Oke 2012) and applying them to urban climate analysis (air temperature, land surface temperature, UHI, thermal comfort).

Reference: Anjos, M. et al. (2025). LCZ4r: An open-source R package for calculating local climate zone products. Scientific Reports. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-92000-0

Install

pip install -e .            # core
pip install -e ".[all]"     # + optional extras (viz, geoarrow, duckdb, zonal, interp, ucp, lst, era5-global)

Usage

from LCZ4py import lcz_get_map, lcz_plot_map, lcz_get_parameters

map_path = lcz_get_map(city="Berlin", isave_map=True)

Structure

Functions are grouped following the LCZ4r paper's categorisation:

• LCZ4py.general — LCZ map/raster acquisition, morphological parameters, gridded environmental data (LST, CHIRPS, ERA5, PDSI, pollution), area/index statistics.
• LCZ4py.local — station/point-based air-temperature time series, anomalies, UHI (air + surface), spatial interpolation, variograms, thermal comfort, drought indices.
• LCZ4py._internal — shared helpers (downloader/cache/i18n/grid base). Not public API.

Testing

pytest tests/
python test.py   # end-to-end usage example (downloads a real LCZ map)