Abstract

Article abstract: As the most important greenhouse gas, water vapor plays a significant role in global warming. Therefore understanding this important climate parameter in populated area can play an important role in survey the climatic comfort. So in this research, first the spatial autocorrelation and identify behavioral patterns of water vapor pressure in South and Southwest of Iran with exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA) and Anselin Local Moran statistic is investigated and then the effects of this important climatic parameter on population centers is discussed. In this context, the WVP data from 46 synoptic stations in South and Southwest of Iran with appropriate length and highest resolution were used. To analyze the spatial autocorrelation, study area due to the optimal spatial resolution were divided to pixels with the dimension of 9×9 km (3,338 pixels). By programming in MATLAB software, the monthly, annual and decadal WVP were extracted for each pixel. Spatial autocorrelation analysis suggested strengthening and weakening the high-high WVP clusters and Low-Low WVP clusters, respectively. So that high-high WVP clusters have extended near the Persian Gulf (Especially in the Bushehr provinces) and Low-Low WVP clusters have disappeared in southern parts of Zagros; Survey and comparison of the spatial distribution of WVP clusters with temperature clusters, as one of the most important influential parameters, showed a significant positive autocorrelation in the study areaک Thus, according to the direct and indirect effects of WVP on human activities and natural environment as the basis of human activity, the establishment of population in population centers of studies area will be affected by fluctuations of WVP and this trend will be more pronounced in the future. Keywords: Spatial Statistics, Spatial Autocorrelation, Temperature, Water Vapor Pressure, Anselin Local Moran's, Population.,