Investigation of Wind Erosion Status and Identification of Suitable Species for Soil Conservation (Case Study: Gharghari Region, Sistan, Iran)

The ecosystem of arid and desert areas has difficult conditions for plant growth and development, due to lack of moisture, high temperature, strong winds, soil erosion and land degradation caused by human activity, as a limited number of plant species are able to survive. Wind erosion is one of the problems in these areas due to lack of vegetation. There is a need to increase vegetation to prevent this erosion. In such areas, native plants with the ability to adapt to hard environmental conditions are valuable species that are important to be identified. To conduct this research, two random transects with a length of 250 m were first placed to measure the vegetation status and at a distance of 50 meters from each other, plots were thrown 3×3  meters according to the condition of the cover.Also, 1×1m plots were used to measure the percentage of canopy, bare soil, rocks, density and litter. Three soil samples were taken and some of its characteristics were measured. To estimate the amount of eroded soil, the remnants of erosion-resistant areas as well as the depth of degraded soil around the stems and roots of shrub and shrub species were measured at 10 points. The protective performance of plant species against wind erosion was estimated using the difference in the height of the stabilized soil under each canopy relative to the surrounding soil.The results showed that the species of Tamarix sp, Alhagi camelorum, Aeluropus littoralis, Suaeda fruticosa have good adaptation to areas subject to wind erosion in the study area. The predominant species in the region is the Tamarix shrub. Each turmeric shrub has an average canopy cover of 2 square meters in this area, which stabilizes an average of 3.3 square meters of soil. On average, during the droughts of the last 10 years, about 102 tons of soil per hectare of the area has been eroded annually. Therefore, it is suggested that in order to improve the environment of the region, a suitable conditions should be provided for the establishment of species compatible with the region.