Assessing land sensitivity to determine areas prone to wind erosion and dust production using the ILSWE Model

Abstract

Wind erosion plays an essential role in the production of sediment for dust storms and occurs when strong and continuous wind interacts with dry, fine-grained and loose soil. Identifying dust production centers is the first step in prioritizing different areas for executive operations to reduce dust and determine its control methods. Jazmurian area is one of the areas where the intensity and frequency of dust events have increased in recent years and caused a lot of damage. The purpose of this research is to determine the areas prone to dust production and sensitive to wind erosion using the ILSWE model in the Jazmurian wetland basin. This model is based on five effective factors of climate erosivity, soil erodibility, soil crust, vegetation cover, and surface roughness. Maps of temperature, precipitation, wind speed, percentage of sand, silt, clay, calcium carbonate, EVI and land use were used to calculate these factors. After calculating each factor, ILSWE index was calculated by multiplying them. Finally, sensitive areas were identified by classifying this index in Arc GIS software. The ILSWE classification map showed that 46.72% of the studied area is in very low sensitivity class, 16.56% in low class, 13.67% in medium class, 12.41% in severe class and 10.64% in class Very severe sensitive to wind erosion. Severe and very severe sensitivity class was considered as the center of dust generation. The results showed that the southern (wetland area and its surroundings), west, southwest, east and southeast areas of the Jazmurian wetland basin are prone to dust production and wind erosion. These areas are mostly located in areas without vegetation (barren areas), salt marshes and sand dunes; which shows the importance of vegetation in reducing producing dust. On the other hand, the topography, the presence of wind and the characteristics of the soil in these areas help to produce dust. In general, the results of this research showed that the ILSWE model has a suitable efficiency for determining areas prone to wind erosion and dust production.

Keywords

• land sensitivity
• dust
• ilswe model
• jazmurian wetland
• wind erosion