Comparative assessment of the indigenous-local models of rural housing against sandstorms: The case study of Tembaka and Dehkol villages in Hamoun County

The air flow in Sistan Region depends on the direction, speed, and continuation of the winds known as the “120-day winds of Sistan”. These winds blow over the settlements of the region every year from the beginning of June to the end of September with the dominant direction from northwest to southeast. In recent years, there has been a notable increase in the amount of dust and sand transport in residential areas due to climate change and the drying up of Hamoun Lake upstream of these settlements. Identifying local knowledge and implementing proper responses to the behavior and mechanism of natural phenomena in Sistan, especially sandstorms, based on physical-structural planning can have several social, economic, and physical benefits for the residents of the region. This study is applied research with a descriptive-statistical methodology. The statistical population of the study consisted of Tembaka and Dehkol villages in Hamoun County. According to the latest population and housing census, a total of 703 people constituting 244 households live in these two villages. The sample population consisted of 242 individuals and the size of the sample population was calculated by the Cochran’s formula. The one-sample t-test was used to analyze the research findings. The results showed that the high degree of air dryness/low humidity (mean value=4.265) is the most important reason for the sand transport in the studied villages. The most tangible effect of the sand transport on the physical structure of the rural settlements is the formation of heavy dusts in the direction of the prevailing winds (mean value=4.221). Building houses outside the movement path of sand with the mean value of 4.228 is a key strategy to deal with sand transport in the region. Planting trees, especially tamarisk (Gaz), in the northern side of the lands (mean value=4.275) is the most important economic strategy to deal with the problem. Removing the wind-blown sands from the main canals (mean value=3.787) is the most important infrastructural strategy to deal with sand transport in the physical structure of the studied villages.