Domokos Tamás szerk.: Pro Natura. A Dél-Tiszántúl természeti értékei (Békéscsaba, Munkácsy Mihály Múzeum, 1999)

OVERVIEW OF THE NATURAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE REGION The area situated between the Maros and Körös Rivers is lying on the south-eastern part of the Great Hungarian Plain, and can be divided morphologically into two main parts. One is the Békés-Csanád loess ridge, and the other is the alluvial cone of the River Maros. On the Békés-Csanád loess ridge there are only one to two meter differences in elevations, and consequently there are only traces of vertical erosion resulting in valley formation. The tectonic shield runs down from the alluvial cone of the River Maros, and declines towards the River Tisza. Except for the alkaline soils the majority of the soil of the Békés-Csanádi loess ridge is good quality black loess. The alluvial cone of the River Maros originates from the edge of the Great Plain marked by a ridge, and covers approximately seventy kilometres in a fan-shaped alluvial form bordered by Békéscsaba, Tótkomlós and Makó. The alluvial cone is made up from layers of gravel, sand and silt. These layers contain large amount of drinking water and also serve as construction industry raw materials. The area between the Körös and Maros is the hottest region Hungary, the annual average temperature is 10,5-11 Celsius Centigrade (Körös region, Maros region respectively) and the number of days when average temperature exceeds 30 Celsius degrees is over twenty per year. Average annual Rainfall is between five hundred and five hundred and fifty millimetres (arid zone).