Challenges and strategies towards combating dust storm in Sistan based on the institutional stakeholders viewpoint

Sustainable land management is defined as as “the use of land resources, including soils, water, animals and plants, for the production of goods to meet changing human needs, while simultaneously ensuring the long-term productive potential of these resources and the maintenance of their environmental function”. Undoubtedly, achieving comprehensive land management requires effective and coordinated communication, cooperation and synergy of all key stakeholders and stakeholders who have common goals but distinct tasks. The aim of this study is to investigate challenges and strategies for managing and combating dust storm using participatory appraisal among Sistan Institutional Stakeholders Network.

The aim of this research is participatory appraisal of challenges and strategies for managing, controlling and combating the dust phenomenon among 27 invited relevant key institutional stakeholders of Sistan network. Comprehensive studies of Sistan dust conducted by the Research Institution of Forest and Rangeland, and the considered challenges and strategies for managing, controlling and combating dust storm was assessed using a brainstorming technique in a collaborative way. So, the participants have been divided into 5 working groups, including Water-Agriculture, Economics-Development-Infrastructure, Environment-Natural Resources, Cultural-Social-Political, and Law-Policy Making. The challenges and solutions have been investigated.

some challenges stated by the groups are: limitation of water resources, depletion of groundwater table and the lack of optimal decision-making regarding the management of watersheds in western Sistan, the destruction of vegetation in northwestern Sistan, the lack of organizational cohesion and integrated attitude by land management authorities, the lack of communication between research and implementation, migration, insecurity due to the depopulation of villages, increasing poverty and unemployment, weak Iranian diplomacy regarding the Hamoon Wetland, strong dependence of the Sistan region on water resources and agricultural economy, lack of integrated management regarding the maintenance of wetlands. The presented solutions are: determining the extent of urban development based on the volume of available water, modifying the pattern of drinking water consumption, predicting the use of treated municipal effluents to control fine source of dust, the optimal use of precipitation to stabilize eroded areas, improve the Sistan river pathways, forming the Sistan Dust Working Group, evaluating the effectiveness of executive projects on watershed management, and education in schools.

In general, the challenges raised by various institutions indicate a weakness in comprehensive planning, integrated management and good governance based on community-based participatory management.