Evaluation of desertification hazard severity in the Jaz-Murian region

Desertification is a phenomenon occurred in arid and semi-arid because of climate changes, human effects and leads to decrease of ecosystem productions and its potential. In this research, the sensitivity of the Jaz-Murian watershed to desertification was evaluated using Environmental sensitive area scheme (ESAs) model. For this goal, the work unit map was extracted from Landsat (8 OLI) imagery (2015) by maximum likelihood classification algorithm. In each unit, the indices related to climate, soil, vegetation and land management criteria were weighted on the basis of ESAs methodology and expert advice and combined by calculating geometric mean of indices. The results showed that the ESAs value obtained from 1.46 to 1.72, it means that the study area is classified in the critical class of desertification, so that 3136 km2 and 12299 km2 of the area has been felt in C2 and C3 classes, respectively. Salty clay lands (ESAI=1.83), Playa (ESAI=1.78) and sandy lands (ESAI=1.72) had the most sensitivity to desertification that needs to consider as the priority of the management strategies in order to introduce de-desertification projects. Moreover, the climate and land management criteria were shown the more effects on desertification process and also must be focused by scientists who would like to improve the local methods of desertification monitoring and needs to be considered to introduce management plans.