Quantitative Evaluation and Spatial Clustering of Geodiversity in Iran

Geodiversity assessment provides a reliable basis for land planning and management at national and regional levels. The present study was conducted with the aim of evaluating and analyzing the geodiversity in Iran and comparing the two methods of kriging and hotspot analysis in creating a geodiversity map. To this end, five main factors, including, geology, geomorphology, soil, hydrography, and climate were used to generate a geodiversity map. The number of features was counted for each index of each grid. The values of each index and the sum of these values ​were analyzed using Kriging and Getis-Ord Gi* statistics methods. According to the Getis-Ord Gi* statistic, 16.2% of Iran’s area is located in hotspot clusters with a confidence level of more than 95%. The Zagros folded belt, Alborz mountains, Sanandaj-Sirjan zone, Zagros thrust belt, Uromieh-Dokhtar zone, mountains north of Kerman (Central of Iran), and Maku-Baneh zone were identified as the most important geodiversity hotspots in Iran. The results showed that the Getis-Ord Gi* method with a higher coefficient of determination and classification of clusters based on Z-score and P-value is more accurate than the kriging method for classifying hot spots of geodiversity.