This study focuses to analyse the impact of land use changes on short range weather forecasts over Indian region. Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model simulation experiments are conducted by using land use data from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) satellites for pre-monsoon and monsoon season. MODIS 2001 land use is used in control (CNT) experiment and updated land use with recent urban class from MODIS (EXP1) and ISRO (EXP2) for the year 2019 is used to generate model lower boundary conditions in other two experiments. Quantitative error measures and skill score computed for rainfall forecast showed that model skill is better with the use of realistic recent land use data from MODIS and ISRO during pre-monsoon and monsoon period. Extreme Dependency Index score computed also revealed that model skill in predicting extreme rare rainfall events is improved with recent landuse data. Model simulated surface meteorological variables and profiles at lower levels also found to be improved with the inclusion of realistic land use class from MODIS and ISRO. Between the two experiments, the one which used ISRO based land use showed larger improvement particularly during the monsoon season.

Source: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.uclim.2023.101558