Evaluation of Potential Desertification Condition in Yazd - Ardakan Plain Based on Water and Climate Criteria

One of the striking aspects in the world is the phenomena of desertification and degradation of natural resources and international efforts has been considered over the last decades to combat and prevent this phenomenon. The most important cases of these measures are the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification and adaptation to drought effects. The Convention introduced some measures on desertification monitoring and assessment to the member countries. The aim of this study was to assess desertification model IMDPA is Yazd-Ardakan plain. During this study due to time constraints and literature, some indicators of water and climate were selected for each condition of the region. Indicators to measure were groundwater levels depletion and electrical conductivity for water criterion; and drought, aridity and continuous droughts period for the climate criterion. First, the geometric mean of indicators and the criteria of desertification was calculated and based on the quantitative indicators and benchmarks desertification status was classified in 5 classes including non-significant, low, moderate, severe and very severe, and desertification condition map were drawn using GIS in the studied period. According to the results and the numerical measured values, groundwater level depletion with the value of 3.84 is the most effective indicator while continuous drought period with the numerical value of 0.53 showed to have the lowest impact on desertification of the region. According to the analysis, the numerical value of the water criterion is 3.44 is the most effective factor which shows severe condition of desertification in the region.