Impact of the land-use/cover on the dust emission using meteorological data and satellite imagery

Some land use and land cover change has led to destructive environmental stresses, resulting in detachment and emission of dust particles. Land use and land cover changes created in Central Iran have provided favorable conditions for the formation of dust sources. The consequences of these storms go beyond dust sources and affect longer distances. This study is thus aimed to monitor changes in land use and land cover and study their relationship with dust emission rate. To this end, the land use and land cover changes during 2003–2017 in Yazd province were studied by the support vector machine algorithm. The aerosol optical depth obtained from the MODIS sensor was used in dust events with codes 07, 09, 32, and 35 to investigate the impact of the land use and land cover on the dust emission rate. Most of the land use and land cover changes were observed in the salt lands, which showed an increase from 14,017 to 27,221 hectares. The results showed the highest aerosol optical depth (above 0.6) in salt lands and salt pans. Statistical results indicated a significant relationship between the aerosol optical depth and type of land use and land cover during dust events with codes 32 and 35. The types of land use and land cover affected the amount of particle detachment. The highest rates of dust emission were observed in salt lands, salt pans, and bare lands.