CARACTERIZACIÓN Y ZONIFICACIÓN EDÁFICA Y CLIMÁTICA DE LA REGIÓN DE COQUIMBO, CHILE

Abstract

This study consisted in the evaluation and classification of edaphic and climatic resources in the Coquimbos Region using topoclimatics algorithms and satellite images, integrated in GIS environment. We used 78 climatic stations where mean annual and monthly precipitation and mean annual and monthly temperature, relative humidity and solar radiation were recorded. Isolines cartography and a digital elevation model in scale 1:250.000 were also used. To estimate the spatial distribution of the climatic variables, we tested different multiples regressions between topographic variables and climate data. This process conduced to the elaboration of a spatialized matrixes of climatic variables in 1:250.000 scale. This procedure allowed us to calculate variables such as sum of temperature, cumulative cold hours, free frost period, potential evapotranspiration, humidity index, for examples, and compare regression and lineal interpolation spatialization methods. To make the topoclimatic division a multivariate analysis was used. Particularly, clusters analysis with a K-means algorithm was conducted and 17 thermal, hydrical and energetical climatic variables were considered. Our results showed 37 topoclimatic districts cross-checked with different soil (serie level) obtaining a edafic and climatic (Edafoclimatic) classification of about 1.292 zones. This classification was though to be useful tool to organize agricultural goal activities.