REMOTE SENSING AND MULTIVARIATE ANALYSIS FOR ASSESSING THE IMPACT OF PLANT DIVERSITY ON LAND SURFACE TEMPERATURE OF WADI AL-SHARAEA, MAKKAH REGION, SAUDI ARABIA.

Nowadays, studying the macrophytes distribution climatic change reducing effect through land surface temperature is vital. 17 locations with 102 stands were randomly chosen to illustrate the vegetation physiognomy in Wadi Al-Sharaea, Makkah Province, Saudi Arabia. A total of 110 species from 77 genera and 33 families were detected during the field study, with the Poaceae family predominant. Therophytes were the dominant life form (38.2% of the total species), followed by chamaephytes (30.0%), and bioregional elements were the dominant chorotype. Remote sensing data were acquired to evaluate land surface temperature (LST), normalized difference built-up index (NDBI), and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) from 2002 and 2018. The study assesses the relationship between organic matter, plant diversity species, vegetation cover, and LST. Principal component analysis (PCA) was applied, and the obtained data showed that PCA1 and PCA2 represent about 25.29% and 16.34%, respectively. Cluster analysis was used to identify the commonality of the groups among the data from points clustered into four significant clusters. On the other hand, LST correlated with the distribution of some families, such as Caryophyllaceae, Boraginaceae, Euphorbiaceae, and Molluginaceae. The families that correlated to LST show the tolerance of these families to high temperatures. Results showed that Limeaceae, Poaceae, and Zygophyllaceae families grow in soil with high organic matter. These findings indicated fundamental advances in understanding the temperature response of organic matter and plant diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]