Water Demand Investigation in Sabouri Hamoon Wetland to Reduce Dust Propagation in Zabol City Using Satellite Images

Hydropower requirement and agricultural development at upstream points of Hirmand River has significantly reduced the water discharge to Sistan region and the has been led to decreasing right of water and drying of Hamoon International Wetland. This, has been considered as the main reason of Hamoons of Sistan water volume reduce and increasing drought periods. Due to the 120-day winds and the location of Sabouri Wetland, one of the three wetlands in this region, some researchers introduced this wetland as the main source of dust in Sistan region. In this study, decreasing the effects of dust propagation due to water cover area using satellite images is investigated. For precise analyzing and estimating water demand for dust propagation decrease, water cover area in Sabouri Wetland and NDWI index in 113 satellite images from 2009 to 2013 are extracted. By calculating this index and water cover area no correlation between the above parameters is observed and specified that Sabouri is not the main source of the dust propagation. Also results indicated that between 2014 and 2018 the lowest water cover area equal to 150 million square meters was available in the region.