Assessment of Areas Sensitivity to Desertification using ESAs model (Case study: Muksokhteh and Rotok Region of Saravan)

Background and Objectives: Desertification is a major concern of many countries occurs as a result of climatic and human factors. Wind erosion is one of the important factors of soil degradation in arid and semi-arid areas. According to evaluation of United Nation Conference of Desertification, desertification phenomenon threats the future of 785 million people who lived in arid areas which consists 17.7 percent of world's population. Arid and semi-arid areas have occupied most parts of Iran. The aim of this study was quantitatively assessment the environmentally sensitivity area to desertification based on ESAs (Environment Sensitive Areas to Desertification) model in the Muksokhteh and Rotok region of Saravan as one of the critical areas prone to erosion in the Iran.
Materials and Methods: In this research, at the first, the land units map was established including: silty- sandy land with halophytes plants, active hills and sandy zones, silty-sandy land with palm use, old terraces, waterways and canals, salt marsh land, Talkhab and Rotok river sand bed with plant cover, clay pans with sand dunes, fan-shaped alluvial with low gravel surface and high salinity, and crop lands. It was found that in this model four criteria including soil quality, vegetation cover quality, land use management quality and climate quality are desertification factors. These factors were calculated via scoring sub-criteria in each area. Then, the mapping of areas sensitivity to desertification was drawn by GIS software.
Results: The findings of this research showed that the climate quality, management quality and vegetation quality criteria have played the most important role in sensitivity of area to desertification especially in active hills and sandy zones and clay pans with sand dunes. It was found that the study area has critical conditions. It includes high critical (C3) and moderate critical (C2) classes of desertification which cover 99.7%, and 0.3% of the region, respectively
Conclusion: Base on the results, desertification severity classes showed the study area has high sensitivity to wind erosion and desertification. By noticing the evaluated factors, it is understandable that the climate factor has the intensive effect on desertification throughout the study region that they are out of control by human being. The obtained results showed that the study area is susceptible to desertification base on ESAs model, therefore it requires management of the organizations working on combat desertification. It can be concluded that the assessment of desertification sensitivity has priority than plan combating actions in this region.