Relationship between Changes in Water Body and Vegetation in the Eastern of Lake Urmia with the Phenomenon of Dust Storms

The area of Lake Urmia, as the largest closed lake in the world, has significantly reduced in the last three decades, and this trend has had in-depth effects on environmental characteristics of the areas around the lake. During the last two decades, macro-climatic changes in northwestern Iran, and the involvement of anthropogenic factors such as dam construction caused extensive changes in the volume of water entering the lake and the area of water zone along with increasing salt concentration (Mardi et al., 2018; Sotoudeheian et al., 2016; Alkhayer et al., 2019; Boroughani et al., 2019; Mardi et al., 2018; Delfi et al., 2019). The changes in the area and volume of water of this lake on an annual and seasonal scale have had significant effects on the soil, climate and vegetation quality of the areas around this lake (Tourian et al., 2015; Eimanifar and Mohebbi, 2007). Therefore, the effects of dust due to drying of Lake Urmia can affect air quality around the lake up to a radius of hundreds of kilometers both directly by creating internal dust centers (usually dust from salt deposits) and indirectly by weakening vegetation. Also, emit a wave of salt dust in the air of some cities adjacent to the lake, which has a population of nearly six million persons who are directly and indirectly affected by the consequences of the drying of this lake.The main objective of this study was to identify the relationship between dust storms in the eastern part of Lake Urmia and the surrounding vegetation due to the annual and long-term variability of this water zone during the statistical period 1999-2019.