Newly desertified regions in Iraq and its surrounding areas: Significant novel sources of global dust particles

作者：Moridnejad Ali^*; Karimi Neamat; Ariya Parisa A

来源：Journal of Arid Environments, 2015, 116: 1-10.

DOI：10.1016/j.jaridenv.2015.01.008

• Desertification
• Middle East
• Dust storm
• Source identification

Using the newly developed Middle East Dust Index (MEDI) applied to MODIS satellite data, we consider a relationship between the recent desertified regions, over the past three decades, and the dust source points identified during the period of 2001-2012. Results indicate that major source points are located in Iraq and Syria, and by implementing the spectral mixture analysis on the Landsat TM images (1984 and 2012), a novel desertification map was extracted. Results of this study indicate for the first time that c.a., 39% of all detected source points are located in this newly anthropogenically desertified area Using extracted indices for Deep Blue algorithm, dust sources were classified into three levels of intensity: low, medium, and high. A large number of low frequency sources are located within or close to the newly desertified areas. These severely desertified regions require immediate concern at a global scale.

• 出版日期2015-5
• 单位McGill