Block Indicators

The table block_indicators contains the block identifier (id_block), the identifier of the RSU it belongs to (id_rsu), and a set of indicators described below.

Indicators

AREA

Description: Area of the block footprint.

Method: Sum of building areas within the block.

AVG_HEIGHT_ROOF_AREA_WEIGHTED

Description: Mean building roof height within a block, weighted by building area.

Method: SUM(Building Wall Height * Building Area) / SUM(Building Area)

BUILDING_DIRECTION_EQUALITY

Description: Measures how equal the block’s building direction distribution is, considering nb_direction directions.

Method: From the building direction distribution (computed in MAIN_BUILDING_DIRECTION), the equality indicator is: Sum of Min(1/nb_direction, length_dir_i / length_all_dir)

Range of values: [1/nb_direction, 1] — the higher, the more equal the distribution.

BUILDING_DIRECTION_UNIQUENESS

Description: Measures how unique the RSU main building direction is.

Method: |Length_First_Dir - Length_Second_Dir| / (Length_First_Dir + Length_Second_Dir)

Range of values: [0, 1] — closer to 1 means more unique main building direction.

CLOSINGNESS

Description: Indicates if a block has a large closed courtyard. Useful for urban fabric classification.

Method: Difference between st_holes at block scale and sum of st_holes at building scale.

Warning: This method does not identify nearly closed blocks (e.g., 99% closed), which could be relevant for ventilation studies.

References:

  • Bocher, E., Petit, G., Bernard, J., & Palominos, S. (2018). A geoprocessing framework to compute urban indicators: The MApUCE tools chain, Urban Climate, 24, 153-174.

  • Tornay, N., Schoetter, R., Bonhomme, M., Faraut, S., & Masson, V. (2017). GENIUS: A methodology to define a detailed description of buildings for urban climate and building energy consumption simulations, Urban Climate, 20, 75-93.

FLOOR_AREA

Description: Total floor area within the block.

Method: Sum of building floor areas.

HOLE_AREA_DENSITY

Description: Density of holes (courtyards) within a block.

Method: Block courtyard area / block area

MAIN_BUILDING_DIRECTION

Description: Main orientation of buildings within the block (from North, clockwise).

Method: - Calculate the minimum bounding rectangle for each building. - Assign each side to a direction range (default: every 15° in [0°, 180°[ from North clockwise). - Sum side lengths per direction for all buildings in the block. - The mode (most frequent direction) is the main building direction.

NET_COMPACTNESS

Description: Net block compactness, ratio of free external facade area to building volume.

Method: SUM((Building Contiguity * Building Perimeter + Building Hole Perimeter) * Building Wall Height) / SUM(Building Volume)

STD_HEIGHT_ROOF_AREA_WEIGHTED

Description: Variability of building roof heights in the block, weighted by building area.

Method: Standard deviation: SUM(Building Area * (Building Wall Height - AVG_HEIGHT_ROOF_AREA_WEIGHTED)^2) / SUM(Building Area)

VOLUME

Description: Total volume of buildings composing the block.

Method: Sum of building volumes within the block.

GeoClimate - documentation 2020 - 2025 - Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.