Investigation of relationship between land use/cover (LULC) and GIS-based bioclimatic comfort zones based on environmental climate parameters and bioclimatic indices

The aim of this study is to reveal the relationship between bioclimatic comfort zones and land use/cover (LULC) in Sivas province. The bioclimatic comfort zones in the study area were determined depending on environmental climatic parameters (ECP) (temperature (T), relative humidity (RH), and wind speed (WS)) and bioclimatic indices (physiological equivalent temperature (PET), thermohygrometric index (THI), and universal thermal climate index (UTCI)). With the help of the Geographical Information System (GIS), the spatial distribution of the bioclimatic comfort zones determined depending on the environmental climatic parameters and bioclimatic indices were created. LULC maps of the study area for reference years were obtained by using CORINE (coordination of information on the environment) land cover data. With the help of GIS, both bioclimatic comfort mapping (BCM) was revealed and the relationship between obtained bioclimatic comfort zones and LULC was determined. According to the results of this study, it was determined that the LULC type in which the bioclimatically comfortable areas overlap in Sivas province differs according to the used parameter/indices, years and annual periods.