Climatic regionalization mapping of the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area, Australia

In this study, spatial analysis techniques were used to generate climatic zoning maps of the East Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area (MIA), Australia. Long term climate data were used to analyze and assess regional climatic variation by cluster analysis in a GIS environment. Based on thermal and moisture factors, four variables were chosen to develop climate zones. These variables include annual average rainfalls, annual average ETc, annual average Growing Day Degree (GDD) and daily average temperature generated from daily climate data of 36 years (1971–2006) on 12 local weather stations as the fundamental elements of regional climate characteristics. GIS-based spatial analysis models are used to map climate sub-regions from sets of climatic parameters derived from regional climate data sources. Two climate zoning schemes are presented by integration of spatial interpolation, spatial cluster analysis and climate indices methods. One scheme comes with the two climate zones of the West and the East based on spatial cluster analysis according to selected climatic variables, and the other comes with the three comprehensive hydro-thermal zones and the six hydro-thermal balance zones.