A monitoring of the spatial and temporal evolutions of aridity in northern Algeria

Abstract

In order to enhance the understanding of the potential impact of climate change on water availability in the North of Algeria, the spatial and temporal evolutions of the De Martonne aridity index and the Pinna combinative index during the 1980–2018 period were investigated in the present study. The temporal trends in the aridity index time series were examined using the Mann–Kendall and Sen’s slope estimator tests, while the spatial interpolation of the aridity indices and their trends were conducted in a geographic information system environment using the Inverse Distance Weighting technique. The most important outcomes of this study are that the De Martonne aridity index is more appropriate for climate classification in the North of Algeria and that there were no statistically significant aridity changes in most regions during the studied period even though two regional behaviors with respect to aridity index trends were identified in the study area.