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The Impact of Dam Construction in Turkey on the Intensity and Frequency of Dust Events in Western Iran

Hosseinipoor, Mahdi | 2024

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  1. Type of Document: M.Sc. Thesis
  2. Language: Farsi
  3. Document No: 57935 (09)
  4. University: Sharif University of Technology
  5. Department: Civil Engineering
  6. Advisor(s): Danesh Yazdi, Mohammad
  7. Abstract:
  8. This study analyzes the impact of climate-related stressors and water resources development projects in the Tigris-Euphrates Basin on regional dust storm intensity and frequency. To this end, we utilize remote sensing data for Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD), wind speed, surface temperature, soil moisture, precipitation intensity and inter-arrival time, Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI), and vegetation cover to explore long-term trends. To identify dust hotspots, we introduce a normalized intensity-frequency index (NIFI). The NIFI combines the arithmetic mean of AOD values and the frequency of daily AOD measurements exceeding a predefined threshold, to identify potential dust hotspots. Next, we develop a random forest classifier to distinguish between dust from non-dust events. Subsequently, we perform Sobol’ sensitivity analysis to determine and quantify the relative contribution of anthropogenic and climate-driven stressors of dust activity in northern Iraq and eastern Syria (NI-ES). To improve the accuracy of the sensitivity analysis, we employ a Gaussian copula to generate correlated samples that capture the natural dependencies between input variables. The results indicate that the AOD intensity-frequency index in NI-ES shows a surge in dust activity from 2007 to 2012, doubling compared to other periods. Additionally, over 50% of Iran’s western region recorded AOD greater than 0.2 from 2007 to 2012, aligning with peak dust emissions in Iraq and Syria during the same period. Meanwhile, internal dust hotspots in western Iran constitute less than 0.4% of its total area, which has an insignificant impact on dust emissions compared to external sources. Finally, the sensitivity analysis results identify soil surface temperature, desertification in NI-ES, and water development projects in southeastern Turkey as the primary contributors to dust events in western Iran, showing a total effect of 53%, 36%, and 34%, respectively. In contrast, precipitation in NI-ES has the lowest total effect on dust events, contributing only 9%
  9. Keywords:
  10. Dam Construction ; Climate Change ; Remote Sensing ; Desertification ; Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) ; Aerosol Optical Depth ; Fine Dust Production Centers Identification ; Dust Storm ; Dam Construction in Turkey

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