Vegetation Cover Variation and Dust Frequency Analysis Over West of Asia

Dust is one of the major environmental problems that make health and financial losses in arid and semi-arid regions. As a country located in the Middle East, Iran has been affected by these natural hazards and every year dust storms occur in different parts of Iran causing huge amounts of damage. Dust storms have increased due to recent droughts and internal Sand and Dust Storm (SDS) hotspots in the Middle East. Interactions between the atmosphere and the earth's surface, such as the effect of vegetation or soil moisture and rainfall intensity in an area, can be important in determining the convective activity of the atmosphere (Lee et al., 2016). Since dust emission and wind speed depend on factors such as soil type, soil moisture, and vegetation (Prospero et al., 2002), it is important to study the relationship between the amount and type of vegetation and drought with dust events. Gradually, as the warm season approaches, the pattern of dust formation is intensified by north, and northwest winds and the wind field channeling due to convergent topography, especially over Mesopotamia. . The lowest values of the VCI in the studied region are observed in the countries of Iraq, Syria, and Saudi Arabia; while the seasonal changes of VCI over Iran are not significant. Nevertheless, in the southeast of Iran, the highest values are related to the summer season, which can be due to the rainfall caused by the activity of the Indian monsoon in this region.