Document Type : Original Article

Authors

• Rasoul Afsari ¹
• Kazem Borhani ²
• Shahin Jafari ³

¹ SUPREME NATIONAL DEFENCE UNIVERSITY, Tehran, Iran

² PhD in Geography and Urban Planning, Supreme National Defense University. Tehran, Iran.

³ M.Sc. student of Remote Sensing and Geographic Information System, Faculty of Geography; University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Due to its proximity to major sources of dust (the deserts of Iraq, Syria and Saudi Arabia) in the west, Iran has always faced dust storms and their sequences. Moreover, the Tigris and Euphrates basin (TEB) is considered one of the main centers of dust in the region. Hence, it can lead to adverse environmental, social and economic consequences, especially in the dry areas of southwestern Iran, and cause problems in human activities. Thus, identifying and evaluating different dimensions of this phenomenon is of vital importance. Accordingly, the aim of the current study is to investigate the temporal and spatial patterns of dust distribution in the southwest of Iran and to identify its relationship with the trend of surface water changes in the TEB. In this regard, the JRC Landsat dataset was used to monitor surface water changes and an integrated approach based on visual interpretation and assessment of aerosol optical depth (AOD) of MODIS images was used, and the processing was done on the platform of Google Earth Engine (GEE). The findings have shown that the occurrence of dust was largely correlated with the temporal pattern of surface water, and there was a negative correlation of 0.412. Accordingly, with the beginning of the decreasing trend of water in 2008, which has reduced its area to about 8199 km2, the dust storm has intensified and the highest annual frequency of dust has been observed with 2612 cases. Therefore, the role of water changes has been highlighted in this context.

Keywords

• Dust Storm
• Remote Sensing
• MODIS
• Google Earth Engine
• Tigris and Euphrates

Main Subjects

• Remote sensing and Gis