IMPACT OF LAND USE CHANGE ON WEATHER RESEARCH AND FORECASTING (WRF) OUTPUT: A CASE STUDY FOR THE PHILIPPINES

ABSTRACT: The interaction between land and the atmosphere is important in every weather prediction model. Changes in land use can affect the output of weather model because the incoming and outgoing radiations are altered by the modification of biophysical properties on the earth's surface. In this research, the Weather Forecasting and Research Model (WRF) was used to produce numerical weather prediction (NWP) output for June 2015 with the 2001 and 2010 land use from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiomater (MODIS). Comparisons of the resulting forecast outputs were conducted between the two time periods of to evaluate the impact of land use changes that happened in the country. The study utilized the biophysical parameters of various land use in order to determine the difference brought by land use change, particularly it looked in the Albedo, Emissivity, Surface Roughness and Soil Moisture availability. The research proved the feasibility of using available land use data from MODIS in order to update the land use input in the model. The changes in land use brought variation on these biophysical parameters which have caused the general alteration in meteorological variables such as changes in minimum and maximum temperature, wind speed and precipitation. The result of this study proved that MODIS is one of the land use data feasible to be utilized in NWP model. The impacts brought by updated land use data could be used to understand the land and atmospheric interaction including the improvement of weather and climate model for future simulations