Climate Quality Index Essay

Climate quality index is based on the amount of precipitation, the aridity of the region, and the slope aspect. Our study area only shows one prevailing climate condition, which is the continental semi-arid climate type. In consequence, map generated for the CQI has a dominant and only moderate class (tinted in yellow). Soil quality index is based on soil permeability, the presence of the soil organic matter, clogging, erodibility, rock’s hardness, and slope gradient. SQI Map clearly highlights the three categories; moderate quality class has the highest repartition in the study area with nearly 50 per cent. Low and high quality are to follow with 44 percent and 6 percent of the study area, accordingly. High soil quality is distributed in the agriculture field, mostly in the valley where slope is gentle. Vegetation quality index map, in relation to fire risk, erosion protection, drought resistance, and vegetation cover, shows high, moderate, and low-quality classes for our study area. In fact, moderate quality category has the highest percentage (~51 per cent). It is followed by the

Due to the lack of the some variables for our region, we substituted those missing parameters with others (i.e. permeability, soil organic matter, clogging, erodibility, rock’s hardness). The usage of this newly introduced factors, may or may not, increases the significance of the MEDALUS approach for our region. Further studies validating our method is required. The addition of other parameters (e.g. wind erosion), which are weighted, or those already used in the standard MEDALUS approach when are available, is suggested for future researches. Furthermore, the choice of the data precision (e.g. DEM of 50 m. or 10 m.), as well as the usage of multiscale data (e.g. soil map 1/50000 and geological map 1/20000) may generate errors that need to be assessed. Future works focusing on this complications are