11The recently developed Local Climate Zones (LCZ) classification system was not originally designed for mapping, but 12 to classify and standardize urban heat island observation sites. Nevertheless, if the aim is to characterize the areas with 13 different thermal reactions within a wider study area, the mapping seems to be a useful application of the system. 14 Our objectives are: (i) to develop GIS methods to calculate different parameters describing the LCZs for any part of the 15 study area, (ii) to identify and delineate the LCZ types occuring in the study area using the calculated parameters, (iii) to 16 select representative sites of an urban monitoring network using the mapped LCZs and modelled mean annual 17 temperature surplus pattern. 18The input data were: 3D building, road and Corine Land Cover databases, aerial photographs, topographic map and 19RapidEye satellite image. The basic area of calculation was the building block with the area belonging to (polygon). 20These polygons classified with the same or similar parameter values were aggregated to evolve the appropriate size 21 zones. As a result, six built LCZ types were distinguished in the studied urban area. 22

Owing to anthropogenic activity, local climate develops in the area of built-up zones. The characteristics of built-up zones can be quantifi ed by diff erent methods. One of the methods is the Local Climate Zones (LCZ) classifi cation system which describes the physical conditions of a local-scale environment of a measuring site from the viewpoint of the generated local climate. It is applicable worldwide universally and relatively easily based on objective geometric, radiative and thermal properties of the surface. The objectives of this study are to develop GIS methods in order to calculate several parameters describing the LCZs for any part of the study area using diff erent databases and to identify and delineate the LCZ types which occur in and around the city of Szeged (Hungary) using the developed methods. As a result, six built LCZ types were distinguished and mapped in the studied urban area: "compact mid-rise", "compact low-rise", "open mid-rise", "open low-rise", "large low-rise" and "sparsely built". The developed method can be used in any urban area if the necessary input databases are available.

Weather classification approaches may be useful tools in modelling the occurrence of respiratory diseases. The aim of the study is to compare the performance of an objectively defined weather classification and the Spatial Synoptic Classification (SSC) in classifying emergency department (ED) visits for acute asthma depending from weather, air pollutants, and airborne pollen variables for Szeged, Hungary, for the 9-year period 1999-2007. The research is performed for three different pollen-related periods of the year and the annual data set. According to age and gender, nine patient categories, eight meteorological variables, seven chemical air pollutants, and two pollen categories were used. In general, partly dry and cold air and partly warm and humid air aggravate substantially the symptoms of asthmatics. Our major findings are consistent with this establishment. Namely, for the objectively defined weather types favourable conditions for asthma ER visits occur when an anticyclonic ridge weather situation happens with near extreme temperature and humidity parameters. Accordingly, the SSC weather types facilitate aggravating asthmatic conditions if warm or cool weather occur with high humidity in both cases. Favourable conditions for asthma attacks are confirmed in the extreme seasons when atmospheric stability contributes to enrichment of air pollutants. The total efficiency of the two classification approaches is similar in spite of the fact that the methodology for derivation of the individual types within the two classification approaches is completely different.

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