Determining deserts domain of Iran aspect of natural environmental factors

So far, different statistics have been presented for the area of deserts in the world and Iran by individuals and organizations. The reason for this difference is mainly due to the disagreement among experts in providing a comprehensive definition of desert and factors affecting its formation. In this paper, the factors of natural environment, such as climate, vegetation, geomorphology, soil, geology and hydrology, whose effects are directly or indirectly involved in the emergence and general appearance of the desert, were investigated. Therefore, to identify and define the desert ranges in terms of the study factors, a number of indicators were defined, based on which desert zones were identified for each factor individually. Then, digital maps were produced by overlaying the layers. Results showed that the largest area of desert regions in Iran with a surface of 693690 and 567711 square kilometers is influenced by climatic and vegetation factors, respectively, and the least area of desert regions with a surface area of 208041 and 272,258 km is affected by the geological and geomorphologic factors, respectively. From the aspect of soil science, the area of desert regions in Iran covers a surface of 514930 km2. The total area of deserts was calculated to be 9007293 square kilometers, which accounts for 55 percent of the total area of Iran.