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. 2023 Apr 13;195(5):564.
doi: 10.1007/s10661-023-11187-9.

Characterization of the water bodies of Extremadura (SW Spain)

Mohamed Amine Abdennour  1 , J Francisco Lavado Contador  2 , Jesús Barrena González  2 , Chiara Piccini  3 , Anthony Gabourel Landaverde  2 , Manuel Pulido Fernández  2
Affiliations

Characterization of the water bodies of Extremadura (SW Spain)

Mohamed Amine Abdennour et al. Environ Monit Assess. .

Abstract

Extremadura is the region that stores the greatest amount of fresh water in Spain. Such water is mainly used for power generation, irrigation in agriculture, biodiversity conservation, tourism, recreation, and human and livestock consumption. Nevertheless, crucial information on the total number of water bodies and their geometrical characteristics and spatial distribution patterns are still missing. Thus, our main goal was to characterize the Extremenian water bodies geometrically and spatially through different statistical techniques such as kernel density, Moran's index, the Getis-Ord Gi*, and principal component analysis (PCA). Firstly, all existing hydrological information was gathered, and using aerial aircraft imagery and satellite images, each water body (WB) was then carefully collected, checked, and corrected. We have inventoried 100,614 WBs (mean density: 2.45 WB km2), irregularly distributed on the territory. WBs with an area < 0.01 km2 (100 ha) represent 64.5% of the total. A multivariate statistical study was conducted, showing that livestock, aridity of the climate, and topography are the main factors controlling the density of water bodies (WBs) in this area. It can be concluded that monitoring of small bodies is crucial to understand their spatial distribution, since they are spread over areas in which extensive farming and commercial crops such as tobacco strongly influence the way of living of many families.

Keywords: Agriculture; Land use; Livestock; Reservoirs; Spatial analysis.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Location of the study area
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Climograph generated with meteorological data from Caceres station (period: 1981–2021)
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Land cover of the study area
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Example of water bodies digitized from an orthophoto image
Fig. 5
Fig. 5
Spatial distribution of water bodies of Extremadura by size classes
Fig. 6
Fig. 6
Map of kernel density of the water bodies in Extremadura
Fig. 7
Fig. 7
Moran’s index report for the water bodies of Extremadura
Fig. 8
Fig. 8
Hot and cold spot analysis of the water bodies in Extremadura
Fig. 9
Fig. 9
Omnidirectional variogram of water body sizes
Fig. 10
Fig. 10
Projection of the variables on the plane defined by factors 1 and 2. WB, density of SWBs; LD, livestock density; DD, drainage density; LS-temp, land surface temperature; SPI, standard precipitation index; TWI, topographic wetness index; PD, population density; Elev, elevation
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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