Climatic Regionalization of Charmahale Bakhtiary province with new statistical techniques

Natural characteristics, especially the climate of each area plays a major role in planning and preparation. Charmahale Bakhtiary is a province that located in the west mountainous area of Iran. Due to topography diversities, this region has a different distribution of climate elements (especially, rainfall and temperature). In order to detect sub-climatic regions, statistical methods such as factor analysis and cluster analysis were used. The climatic parameters were obtained from 6 meteorological stations in the province and to overcome the lack of climate control stations throughout the area Interpolation technique (IDW) was used. Then data matrix with dimensions of 26 × 46 (variables× stations) was produced and based in factor analysis. The results showed, four major factors which affect the climate of province in order of importance are: the precipitation, the clear sky, the temperature and the humidity. Finally, cluster analysis on the matrix of factor scores recognized the four climate zones.