Clustering of terrain and land use in municipalities of the North Caucasus

Abstract

Relevance. The relevance of the work is determined by the need to assess the influence of mountain conditions on the development of regions and municipalities that are in unfavourable conditions relative to the plains. The aim of the paper is to assess the relationship between terrain and land use based on clustering of municipalities (districts and areas) of the North Caucasus. Methods. Geoinformation analysis of terrain and remote sensing data made it possible to typify municipalities and to distinguish clusters by the relationship between terrain types and land cover types. To test the relationship between terrain types and land use, a contingency table of two rasters (a raster of terrain mesoforms by 4 features and a raster of the landscape cover and land use mosaic) was created. Results. Objective clustering tools revealed high levels of clustering efficiency (Ratio = 0.94) when distinguishing 9–10 clusters of the North Caucasus municipalities. Such an order of territorial differentiation fully meets practical demands, since it accounts for the most significant differences. The division of municipalities by these criteria may serve as a basis for equalizing coefficients in development support. The opposite poles are occupied by high-mountain municipalities (15 in total) and highly urbanized ones (10). Between them lies a spectrum of municipalities characterized by various combinations of terrain and prevailing land use types.