مشخصات پژوهش

This study is the first effort to investigate the contribution of erosive winds in dust pollution, analyze the trend of their changes, and identify the most important factors affecting them in arid urban environments of Yazd province, central Iran. The Mann–Kendall test was utilized for analyzing the trend of changes and the random forest and mean decrease Gini were used to identify key influential factors on the erosive winds speed. The results showed that from 2004 to 2022, on average, 7.7% of the total winds recorded in Yazd province led to dust pollution. The share of erosive winds in winter (46%) and spring (37.3%) was significantly higher than in summer (11%) and autumn (5.7%). The highest frequency of erosive winds was observed in the central regions of the province and the lowest in the southern and southwestern regions. The analysis also showed that the speed of erosive winds has decreased while their frequency has increased in the central areas of the province. These changes in 70.9% of Yazd province were due to terrestrial characteristics changes, including soil temperature, moisture, salinity, and vegetation cover, and in 29.1% of the province were due to fluctuations in the climatic elements of evaporation, relative humidity, and rainfall. These results can be effective in making strategic decisions to deal with the intensification of dust pollution in the central regions of Iran, especially in high-risk seasons.