Homogenisation of a soil properties map by principal component analysis to define index agricultural insurance policies

The three resulting maps were evaluated by agricultural and spatial analysis. The factorial map showed more homogeneous classes than the climatic map but the later lost all the soil characteristics information that will influence the index value variations. On the other hand, the factorial map obtained fewer classes than the control map, although retaining the main information on soil variability in the study area. These results obtained from the statistical method (factorial map) demonstrate that this method has generalised efficiently climatic, topographic and soil characteristics of the complete dataset.