Investigation on the effect of natural resources exploitation on desertification (Case study: Hamoon, Sistan)

Natural resources are considered as a national wealth, having an essential role in the independence and life sustainability of each country. The role of human and how to deal with natural resources is one of the factors threatening these valuable and god-given resources. Therefore, the knowledge of the human needs, problems and socio economic issues could be useful in recognizing the reasons of non-peaceful behavior with the surrounding nature. In the present study, it was attempted to study the socio economic issues, problems, and the needs of Hamoon residents in order to identify effective human factors on degradation of the natural resources of the study area. For this purpose, after carrying out necessary studies, interview and questionnaires, uncontrolled harvesting of firewood and forage was identified as destructive factors, leading to desertification. In order to identify human factors affecting the aforementioned destructive factors, the questionnaires were completed by experts and exploiters and the obtained data were analyzed by linear regression test in SPSS software. Our results showed that the age of exploiters, the history of exploitation and the size of family had direct effects on the amount of firewood and forage harvesting while an inverse effect was found for the surface area of agricultural lands. In addition, the number of animal unit had an inverse effect on the amount of harvested firewood while it affected the amount of harvested forage directly. It can be concluded that a few of socio economic factors have a close relationship with land degradation and desertification of the study area. A high correlation was found between the studied factors and the amount of harvested firewood and forage.