INVESTIGATION OF THE EFFECTS OF SALT DUST CAUSED BY DRYING OF URMIA LAKE ON THE SUSTAINABILITY OF URBAN ENVIRONMENTS

Abstract

Due to the gradual drying of parts of Urmia Lake, several centers of salt dust which is created and influence the agriculture, economy, public health and causes migrations within the region of the Urmia Lake. Hence, knowing the temporal and spatial distribution of this phenomenon is very important to quantify these effects. In the present study, using Sentinel-5 and MODIS products for 2020 in the Google Earth system, have shown despite month-to-month fluctuations, has an increasing trend and the incremental changes of fine dust are more considerable in May and June and their dispersal are greater in the northern and northwestern cities in the basin of the Urmia Lake. The distribution of fine dust in the cities of Tabriz, Shabestar, Urmia, Mahabad, Khoy, Salmas, and Tabak, shows heavy concentrations of the dusts, and exhibits destructive impacts on the economy (60.80%) in December and also has adverse effects on the health index. And most of the referrals of people suffering from diseases caused by fine dust in December is (47.50%). The two indicators of agriculture and migration are closely related and the most effects of salt dust for these two indicators showed (15%) in November and (40.51%) in July, respectively. According to the results, it can be said that these dust particles have the greatest impact on the indices (migration, economy, agriculture, and health) of urban regions of the basin of Urmia Lake from 2019 to 2020. The results of this study can directly contribute to the decision-making process by the local authorities to understand the environmental problems across urban and rural areas of Urmia lakes which is at considerable risk.