| Athanassia Darra, M. Kavouras, N. Tzelepis, CHARACTERIZATION OF GREEK MUNICIPALITIES |
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Geographia Technica, Special Issue, 2010, pp. 12 - 19 CHARACTERIZATION OF GREEK MUNICIPALITIES AND SUB-MUNICIPALITIES ACCORDING TO THEIR TOPOGRAPHIC RELIEFAthanassia DARRA, Marinos KAVOURAS, Nikos TZELEPISABSTRACT: Relief characterization of administrative units has been very important to national statistical
authorities. It is a basic spatial property upon which numerous other phenomena occur. A
recently completed project for the National Statistical Service of Greece, had to deal with
the global characterization of the municipalities and sub-municipalities (local departments)
of the entire Greek territory, into mountainous, semi-mountainous or plane (flat) terrain
(M/S/P) according to their topographic relief characteristics. Contrary to the limitations of
manual/visual characterizations of the past, this digital procedure is based on a single,
explicit, quantified, objective and controllable approach. It involves analysis of
morphological characteristics of the entire country, using an appropriate digital terrain
model where the main relief parameters affecting the resulting characterization were
elevation and slope. Instead of just calculating a final, global characterization (M/S/P) for
each municipality or local department, the methodology provides important and very useful
individual, internal relief information for each area. The results are presented with series of
2D and 3D relief-type maps, which do not however portray elevation but the weighed
characterization relief index expressing “mountainicity”. Also, the use of the ternary
diagram proves to be very useful in detecting similarities and dissimilarities among the
different areas in question. |
