Dust Outbreaks across East Iran: Application of Multi-Source Remote Sensing Data (AMSR-E and FengYun3-MWRI) on the Effects of Soil Moisture

One of the most significant hydro-meteorological and agricultural variables is soil moisture, yet measuring it remains a difficult task. Due to the significant spatial fluctuation of soil moisture, it is difficult to quantify it in a particular spot or field across a sizable region. Despite the thermal band's limitations in assessing soil moisture, MODIS and AVHRR, which are inappropriate were utilized in this investigation. The study examined the impact of soil moisture on dust outbreak. Soil moisture in the study domain was monitored using field techniques and the hybrid model. It combined multi-sourced remote sensing data, obtained from AMSER-E and FY-3 satellites. AMSER-E satellite measures the light temperature in five frequencies ranging from 6. 9 to 89 GHz based on data obtained from AMSER-E. Findings revealed areas with a spatial scale of 25 km2 has a 12-hour time step or variability in dust storm, thereby influencing soil moisture content within the zone of study. In addition to introducing acceptable potentials of the passive microwave band for accurate and applied monitoring of the soil moisture, the present results are viewed as a reliable source for studies on drought in time scale. The study shows that Zabol in Sistan has the highest annual average of 80.7 dust storm days. Soil moisture estimates serve a great deal for preparing soil moisture maps and the evaluation of temporal and spatial variations of soil moisture in study region to address issues related to dust storms.

In order to identify the areas affected by dust storms and understand how dust particles are dispersed in the Sistan region, satellite image processing was employed using MODIS 1 sensor images obtained from the TERRA satellite.