The spatial distribution of critical wind erosion centers according to the dust event in Hormozgan province (south of Iran)

Wind erosion and its consequent dust storms has become one of the environmental risks in today's world, which has annually caused non-compensable destruction in environment and human health. Since wind erosion is one of the main factors of desertification which could result in dust storms, studying and locating the wind erosion centers in southern parts of Iran is of crucial importance. The aim of this study is to determine the spatial distribution of wind erosion centers associated to local dust event in Hormozgan province (south of Iran). Different factors such as soil features, climate, surface roughness, vegetation cover, topography and the length wind exposure should be investigated for zoning the potential wind erosion regions. Studies showed that many of these factors are relatively uniform for the study region. Therefore, zoning based on all of the above-mentioned factors is not efficient. For this reason, soil texture along with vegetation cover and topography were studied in the current study to zone wind erosion. First, satellite data of soil texture, normalized differential vegetation index (NDVI), and topography were used to address the potential regions of wind erosion in warm and cold periods of the year by ArcGIS. Then, the data of 14 synoptic stations in Hormozgan province were utilized to plot the maps of dust event occurrences. Finally, by combination of the satellite and synoptic data, the map of land sensitivity toward wind erosion was provided, and the obtained results were compared with observations of Forest, Ranges and Watershed Organization (FRWO) of Hormozgan province. The results indicated that there are potential regions for wind erosion and dust sources in the study region. In a way that coastal areas have the highest probability to become wind erosion centers. In this regard, Jask, Bandarabbas and Bandar Lengeh are the first three regions in terms of wind erosion; while Abu Musa has the lowest priority in terms of possessing wind erosion centers. Also, it was revealed that sensitivity to wind erosion and dust storms was higher in warm periods of the year as compared with the cold seasons. The results of this study are in agreement with the observations of FRWO of Hormozgan province. Therefore, desert greening measures and actions to prevent wind erosion can control many of dust storms in the regions.