Regionalization of global runoff data by cluster analysis

Abstract

Global runoff data were passed to a cluster analysis to investigate whether homogeneous runoff patterns could be determined for different regions in the world. Additionally cluster groups of global data of air temperature, precipitation and potential evapotranspiration have been determined as possibility to explain the runoff groups obtained. The results of both cluster analyses were combined with global data of land surface cover in order to investigate how the grouped runoff and climate values are connected to different types of land surface cover. The analysis showed satisfactory results for the interpretation of regionalized runoff groups by clustered climate data. The relation between runoff groups and corresponding types of land surface cover proved to be not significant.

Keywords

• global runoff data
• cluster analysis
• evapotranspiration
• precipitation
• climate data
• globale abflußdaten
• cluster-analyse
• evapotranspiration
• niederschlag
• klimadaten