The key role of water resources management in the Middle East dust events

Abstract

Dust events in the Middle East have resulted in serious environmental problems in many countries in the area. The dust activities in the Middle East were intensified in recent years due to many factors including climate change, drought, and poor water management strategies. This paper investigates the dust activity during 1980–2010 in the Lower Mesopotamia and southwestern Iran and demonstrates that the dust activity in the study area has increased after 1999. This study investigates the role of surface temperature, precipitation, water resources, vegetation, and surface wind velocity on the development of dust events during the study period. This investigation is performed using the correlation analysis of the normalized value of the 5 and 10 year moving average of the mentioned parameters to evaluate the role of each parameter on the increase of dust activity in the last decade of the study period. The correlation analysis demonstrates that the dust activity has the highest correlation and relationship to the water resources of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and indicates the key role of water resources management on the dust activity in the study area. It is shown, The large scarcity of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers water resources has occurred when there was not a sharp reduction in the average precipitation in the study area. Hence, the excessive water withdrawal through the dam construction projects could be considered as the main reason of large reduction of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers water resources and high dust activity in the Middle East during the last decades.