Evaluation of the effects of land use change in Meybod and Ardakan cities on the intensity of wind erosion

Rapid population growth and the need to provide the necessities of life has caused human beings to change land use widely. In many cases these changes have been accompanied by disruption of balance in nature and providing the possibility of soil erosion. This study was carried out to investigate the effect of land use changes on increasing the intensity of wind erosion. Landsat satellite imagery and implementation of supervised classification by using SVMs were used to prepare land use map. Ground surface temperature was calculated, as one of the effective factors in wind formation, with single channel and split window algorithms in different land uses. In order to make connections between land use changes and wind erosion, effective climatic parameters such as temperature, relative humidity and maximum wind speed were investigated. The highest surface temperature was observed in poor and non-vegetation areas, and the lowest temperature was estimated in highlands and rangelands. Results showed an increase in average temperature as well as maximum and minimum absolute temperature and decrease in relative humidity. Over the past decade, the maximum wind speed in the study area showed a significant increase, and it has increased from eight m/s in 1990 to more than 20 m/s in the last decade. This shows that land use change by removing vegetation cover, as well as the uncontrolled increase of human constructions and creating thermal islands in the last 30 years, has a significant impact on the emergence of climate change and increasing wind speed.