Research Article Serial Analysis of Ten Precipitation-Based Indices by Land Use in Semiarid Regions Victor M. Rodríguez-Moreno, 1 J. Ariel Ruíz-Corral, 2 J. Saúl Padilla-Ramírez, 1 Alfonso Peña-Ramos, 1 and Thomas G. Kretzschmar 3 1 Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Forestales, Agr´ ıcolas y Pecuarias (INIFAP), Experimental Field Station “Pabell´ on”, km 32.5, Highway Ags-Zac, 20660 Pabell´ on de Arteaga, AGS, Mexico 2 INIFAP, Experimental Field Station “Centro Altos de Jalisco”, km 8, Highway Tepatitl´ an-Lagos de Moreno, 47600 Tepatitl´ an de Morelos, JAL, Mexico 3 Earth Sciences Division, Department of Geology, Centro de Investigaci´ on Cient´ ıica y de Educaci´ on Superior de Ensenada (CICESE), Highway Tijuana-Ensenada, 22860 Ensenada, BC, Mexico Correspondence should be addressed to Victor M. Rodr´ ıguez-Moreno; rodriguez.victor@inifap.gob.mx Received 5 November 2014; Revised 13 January 2015; Accepted 8 February 2015 Academic Editor: Fubao Sun Copyright © 2015 Victor M. Rodr´ ıguez-Moreno et al. his is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Open ecosystems in Mexico are under increasing pressure, due particularly to the expansion of cities and agricultural activities. hese developments occur without integrating biodiversity concerns in land use planning and result in extensive fragmentation and transformation of the landscapes. he semiarid region of Mesa Central was characterized using ten precipitation-based indices. Using multivariate statistical and geostatistical spatial analysis techniques, the inluence of those indices on ive land use strata was explored. Land use analysis indicated that the maximum values of the ive signiicant precipitation-based indices were found in Grasslands, Agricultural Use, and Shrubs; minimum values were characteristic of substrates Secondary Desert Vegetation and Other Use. Our results suggest that the greatest number of extreme precipitation events is likely to occur in open ecosystems and consequently will have a strong inluence on landscaping and land use. he semivariogram analysis and geostatistical layers demand attention from research institutions, policy makers, researchers, and food producers to take the appropriate and coordinated actions to propose scenarios to deal with climate change. Perhaps this study can stimulate thought concerning research endeavours aimed at promoting initiatives for biodiversity conservation and planning programs for climate change mitigation. 1. Introduction Climate results from a combination of atmospheric factors and environmental conditions that operate at diferent levels [1]. Indices for climate variability and extremes have been used for a long time, oten by assessing days with precipitation observations above or below speciically based thresholds [2]. Because vegetation covers most of the global land surface, it strongly afects the land-atmosphere exchanges of energy, momentum, and materials [3] through the distinctive combination of interacting elements that are repeated in similar form through the landscape; it also impacts runof and erosion rates along with soil stability. Most semiarid regions sufer severe rainfall erosion [4]; since water has a high erosive capacity, more damage is likely to occur in these areas because of reduced vegetative protection. Climate system warming is unequivocal, and since the 1950s many of the observed changes are unprecedented when seen over decades, even millennia [5]. According to Zeng et al. [3], arid and semiarid regions are dominated by shrub communities with many subtypes. In addition, within the spatial limits of these regions, an exceptional richness of biodiversity and an astonishing variety of biomes are found; exceptionally high species diversity and endemism occur. Plant community spatial distribution is strongly inluenced by rainfall distribution, soil water retention rate, and the soil itself as substrate. Additionally, temperature and geomor- phic factors inluence plant community distribution in the Hindawi Publishing Corporation Advances in Meteorology Article ID 797434