Studying the effect of dust on vegetation changes (Case study: Shadegan wetland, Khuzestan)

Wetlands and water ecosystems are important, especially in terms of environmental values. Mapping vegetation changes can provide valuable information and removing vegetation can cause environmental disasters such as dust. This study aimed to investigate and determine the spatial and temporal variations in Khuzestan, Shadegan wetland coverage and these changes are analyzed with a dust storm data. Temporal and spatial variation of vegetation measured using Normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) of MODIS images from 2000 to 2011, and vegetation cover changes were determined and different variables of dust (total annual density, maximum annual concentrations and annual average concentrations of dust) from Ahwaz station were analyzed for detecting changes of vegetation cover. The results indicated that the total area of vegetation NDVI from 2000 to 2011 declined 7.36%. Also, the results showed the highest and lowest water area 25.67% and 19.72% belong to 2007 and 2000 respectively, and the highest and lowest vegetation area were 31.21% and 17.27 % in 2000 and 2004 respectively. According to statistics from 2002 onwards we have been faced with increasing dust storm which indicated a correlation between dust and wetland vegetation. Also worth noting is that the total annual concentration of dust and vegetation indices showed a higher determination coefficient (0.8516). Meanwhile, 2 month delay effect of dust has 0.8214 determination coefficient with NDVI.