The impacts of different kinds of dust storms in hot and dry climate, a case study in Sistan region.

Abstract

Dust storms are catastrophic natural disasters that beside other disasters frequency occur in the arid and semiaridregions worldwide. Drought occurrence, climate aridity, dryness of the Hamoun Lake cause strong winds to below.These conditions have been prepared for dust storms in Sistan region. The damages to Sistan society have beenmeasured using different criteria. The result shows that, peak of dust storms takes place at 10:30 am and the particularminimum was recorded at 6:30 pm. The maximal frequency of dust storms has been occurred in June and July. Sincethe dust storms cause extensive damages, an attempt has been made to quantify the damage costs using an analyticaldescriptivemethod based on questionnaires completed by the local community and organizations. The cumulativelosses in terms of physical damage and loss of productive man-hours have been estimated US$ 99.190 million, over afive year period between 2000-2005.