Assessment of land sensitivity to determine areas dust sources (Case study: Alborz province)

Subject Areas : ارزیابی پی آمدهای محیط زیستی

katayoon hojati ¹ , Zahra Abedi ² , behzad raigani ³ , mustafa panahi ⁴

1 - PHD student of environment management, enviro-economy Islamic Azad University Science and Research Branch, Tehran, Iran.
2 - member of science board in environment and Natural resources faculty, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran(in charge of correspondence)
3 - Faculty member, Research group of Environmental Assessment and Risks, Research center of Environment and sustainable Development(RCESD), Department of Environment, Tehran, Iran.
4 - member of science board in environment and Natural resources faculty, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.

Received: 2020-10-10 Accepted : 2020-12-13 Published : 2022-01-21

Keywords: Fuzzy membership, Wind Erosion, Sensitivity to erosion, Regional model,

Abstract :

Background and Objective: The vastness of arid areas and the abundance of dust storms in the country have made the accurate identification of dust production centers always one of the main goals of research in the field of dust. The primary objective of this study is dust storm source identification in Alborz ProvinceMaterial and Methodology: In this study, the Index of Land Susceptibility to Wind Erosion (ILSWE) was used to locate dust sources. The ILSWE was created by combining five influential wind erosion factors including climatic erosivity, soil erodibility, soil crust, vegetation cover & surface roughness. Temperature, precipitation, wind speed, sand percentage, silt, clay, calcium carbonate, EVI and land use maps were used to calculate these factors. After calculating each of the factors, by multiplying them together, the ILSWE index was calculated. Finally, by classifying this index in Arc GIS software, sensitive areas were identified.Findings: The final map of ILSWE index showed that in general, the southern regions of Alborz province are more sensitive to wind erosion than other regions. The ILSWE classification map showed that 34.5% of the studied area falls within the very low class, 26.8% in the low class, 18.3% in the medium class, 12.6% in the high class and 7.8% in very high sensitivity to wind erosion class. Very high sensitivity class was considered as dust sources, which is mainly located in the southern parts of Alborz province. Most sources of dust are barren lands.Discussion and Conclusion: According to the results of this study, barren lands have an important role in dust production in Alborz province; therefore soil stabilization operations in these areas are necessary to reduce dust. In general, the results of this study showed that the ILSWE index is a suitable regional model for determining susceptible areas and centers of dust production.

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