Developing restoration strategies in Jazmurian wetland by remote sensing

Abstract

Jazmurian wetland is located in an endorheic basin at the southern edge of the Dasht-e-Lut. Several factors such as high evaporation, overexploitation of groundwater, dam construction on the rivers feeding the wetland, and the effect of drought and climate changes have caused this wetland to dry out during the recent years. Accordingly, this wetland has become one of the main sources of dust generation in the south east of Iran. In this study, several strategies are adopted to prevent dust loading and restore the wetland. For this purpose, the time series of SMOS surface soil moisture (SMOS SSM) and aerosol optical depth of MODIS (MYD08) were used to determine the critical soil moisture for prevention of dust loading. In addition, the temporal monitoring of wetland water area was performed in a 30-year period of 1987–2017 using Landsat Data Series (MSS, TM, ETM +, and OLI). Further, the relationship between wetland water area, rainfall, as well as inflow water the wetland in this period was investigated. Finally, different strategies were evaluated for supplying water to moisten the soil. The results suggested that the rainfall has the most substantial effect on the wetland water area. It was suggested that in order to control the dust loading, the wetland soil moisture content should be equal to the critical soil moisture. Using the SMOS SSM and MYD08, the critical soil moisture content for prevention of dust loading was estimated as 10%. The design of a rainwater catchment system to harvest rainfall and drilling some wells in Jazmurian wetland were the final strategies for restoration of the wetland.