JOURNAL OF NATURAL ENVIRONMENT HAZARDS
Year:2024 | Volume:13 | Issue:40 (پیاپی2)|Papers Count:8

In the present study, the seismic vulnerability of the northern Tabriz (regions 1, 5, and 10) has been assessed spatially. The evaluation process goes through five distinct phases: spatial evaluation of criteria affecting seismic vulnerability, fuzzification, determination of criteria weight using AHP, integration of all maps for evaluation criteria, and finally, damage coefficient calculation. The results of the AHP model indicate that distance to the fault residential density (with a weight of 0.229) and population density (with a weight of 0.162) are the most important criteria affecting the seismic vulnerability of the northern regions of Tabriz. Seismic vulnerability zoning shows that almost all the northern regions of the city have high to very high vulnerability to earthquake hazards. More than 16.6% and 5.6% of the study regions are located in the high and very high seismic vulnerability class, respectively. These spaces mainly include residential land uses in the western neighborhoods of Region 1 and the central neighborhoods of Region 10. Based on the seismic vulnerability coefficient for an earthquake with a magnitude of 10, the amount of destruction in these regions will be between 65 and 100 percent. Proximity to the great fault of Tabriz, high population and residential density, lack of urban open spaces, a significant part of fine-grained buildings, worn-out urban texture, and marginalization are among the reasons for the high seismic vulnerability of the western parts of Region 1 and the central parts of region 10.

Nowadays, following the development of agriculture, there are concerns about adverse environmental consequences such as water, soil, air pollution, fertility reduction, soil erosion, and resource depletion based on the use of non-renewable inputs, which require a solution in this regard. This study was conducted in Gorgan and Zahedan counties during the agricultural year of 2018-2019 to evaluate the environmental impacts caused by the acidification and eutrophication of the terrestrial ecosystem and resource depletion. In this study, water consumption, vermicompost fertilizer, nitrogen fertilizer nano chelate, phosphorus nano chelate, potassium fertilizer nano chelate, and chemical fertilizer consumption (from the source of urea, triple superphosphate, and potassium sulfate) are considered as inputs susceptible to environmental damage. In general, for one ton of purslane forage production, Gorgan County creates fewer ecological burdens than Zahedan County due to less consumption of inputs in all impact sectors. Based on the final index results, it concluded that the highest environmental damage potential in Zahedan County is related to the impact group of water resources depletion with the amount of 3.18 m3, and in Gorgan County, related to the impact group of terrestrial ecosystem acidification with the amount of 1.608 kilograms is equivalent to one kilogram of SO2 in the production of one ton of purslane forage, and the lowest environmental damage potential in both the cities of Zahedan and Gorgan is related to the groups of phosphate and potassium depletion with partial amounts. Based on the evaluation results of the ecological index (Eco-X) and the resource depletion index (RDI) per ton of purslane forage production, Zahedan County has a higher ecological index (Eco-X = 3.387) than Gorgan County (Eco-X = 2.899) and created more ecological burdens. However, the resource depletion index (RDI) was calculated for Zahedan County as (RDI = 3.188) and Gorgan County as (RDI = 1.456).

Estimation of flood zoning is very important in terms of management and determination of flood damages. Remote sensing and the use of high-resolution images can be effective in extracting flood zoning estimator indicators. In this research, Sentinel 2 images in the year of the flood occurrence with a spatial resolution of 10 meters and Landsat 8 images at the same time in the years before and after the flood were used by environment the Google Earth Engine. In this study, the zoning of the flood was estimated using indices of NDWI, MNDWI, and DVDI. The results showed that the MNDWI, despite the long-time interval (20 days) after the flood of 2019 and the evaporation of most of the water spread over the lands, the area of flooding was estimated better compared to the NDWI around 330.59 ha. Also, the flood-affected area using DVDI (that indicates the destruction of vegetation due to floods showing negative values) was estimated at 3522.21 ha, which showed a small difference compared to the results provided by the results of Lorestan Governorate research (4750 hectares). Finally, the results showed although DVDI optimally estimated flood zoning due to the use of the 5-year time series of the NDVI before and after the flood if the cloud-free images of Sentinel 2 exist to extract the MNDWI, it probably could perform better than the DVDI. In general, the use of the above indicators is suggested as an important, practical, and low-cost method for management, area estimation, and flood damage determination.

The emission of greenhouse gases is the main cause of global warming and environmental problems. The agricultural sector is one of the major sources of emissions so one-third of the greenhouse gas emissions in the world are related to agricultural systems. Today, forecasting is considered an important planning tool for policymakers. Forecasting the amount of greenhouse gas emissions can show a picture of the future for policymakers and help them in making strategic decisions. There are various methods for predicting variables. This study aims to compare the methods of forecasting and the emission trend of the most important greenhouse gases (methane, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen oxide) from Iran's agricultural sector. The necessary statistics and information were collected annually between 1990 and 2019 from the websites of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the World Bank, and the energy balance sheet of the Ministry of Energy, and to predict the variables from univariate methods of autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA), single exponential smoothing with trend, double exponential smoothing with trend, Holt-Winters multiplicative and Holt-Winters additive and multivariate model of vector autoregressive were used. Based on the research findings, methods of Holt-Winters additive, artificial neural network, and single exponential smoothing with trend provided the best forecast for methane gas, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen oxide, respectively. The results showed that the emission trend of methane and nitrogen oxide gases will be downward and the amount of carbon dioxide emission will be upward. The results can help predict the greenhouse gases released from the agricultural sector and apply appropriate policies accordingly.

Reducing the effects of drought and optimal management of water resources is affected by the forecast of regional planners of areas affected by the risk of drought, so the evaluation and study of this phenomenon can be very important. Therefore, this study was conducted to Monitor temporal-spatial changes of meteorological drought and trend analysis of climatic variables in Khuzestan province during the period 2000 to 2020 using the SPEI index and ArcMap, XLSTAT, and RStudio software. Two non-parametric methods including Mann-Kendall and Sen's estimator slope methods were used here to analyze the annual trends of data. After calculating the drought, the effect of this phenomenon on the water area of Horul Azim and Shadgan wetlands in 2000, 2006, 2015, and 2020 was investigated. The results showed that there is a direct relationship between the changes in the wetlands cover and the problem of drought, and with the increase of drought, the water cover of the wetlands decreases and with the increase of drought, the area of water in the wetlands increases. The results also showed that the analysis of the trend of changes resulting from Sen’s slope for precipitation and temperature in the stations varied between -1.87 and 3.38 and 0.016 and 2.25, respectively. The highest slope of changes with increasing rainfall was observed in the western and central regions of the province and the slope of negative changes in rainfall has often occurred in the southern regions. Also, temperature analysis with this test showed that the temperature in all stations with a relatively slow slope in the study period had a positive and increasing trend. It is worth mentioning that the existence of increasing and decreasing trends indicates the existence of climate change, so it is necessary to study this issue and provide solutions to water resources management in times of crisis. The increasing and decreasing trend indicates the existence of climatic changes and fluctuations; Therefore, investigating this issue and providing solutions to manage water resources in times of crisis seems essential.

Aerosol optical depth (AOD) is a dimensionless quantity that shows the amount of light passing through the atmosphere and expresses the amount of absorption and scattering caused by aerosols in the path of light passage. Knowing AOD is necessary to understand its effects on air quality and provide a strategy of confrontation with it. South Baluchistan basin is affected by dust and high concentrations of aerosol due to its geographical location. Therefore, in this study, the tempo-spatial changes of AOD in this basin have been analyzed. In this research, the data of the AOD product (MOD 04 L2) and, the Deep Blue algorithm of MODIS sensor of Terra satellite during the period of 2002-2019 were used. Principal component analysis (PCA) and cluster analysis were used for data processing. The results showed that the first component alone explains 84% of the variance of the data. The pattern of temporal changes shows that this component exists throughout the year, but it decreases in the cold period and increases in the warm period of the year. Based on the temporal changes of the AOD, the basin can be divided into four temporal periods: winter, spring-autumn, transitional, and summer. The mean AOD reaches 0.69 in the summer pattern. This means that the basin has relatively dusty weather during the summer. Based on spatial distribution, the basin can be divided into three areas: mountainous, piedmont, and plains. The average AOD in the basin is 0.38, which reaches 0.62 in the plain zone. The AOD regime is the same in all three zones, but the plain zone is significantly different from the other two zones in terms of quantity. The high deal of AOD in this basin is related to regional factors that are active in the warm period of the year (Indian monsoon) in addition to local factors.

The Aral Sea was one of the four largest lakes in the world. In the past six decades, the drying of the Aral Sea has caused environmental changes and increased water salinity. Considering that Lake Urmia has been exposed to widespread drought in recent years, the main objective of this article is to study the environmental hazards created around the Aral Sea after its drying. In addition, the aim is to better understand the tensions that affect Iran and other neighboring countries with the drying up of Lake Urmia. In this study, researchers conducted on the changes in climatic and social conditions of the population of the Aral Sea basin were identified using databases such as PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar between 2000 and 2022, and several articles were reviewed. According to studies, the Aral Sea was 11 times larger than Lake Urmia in the mid-20th century. Due to excessive agricultural development, it began to dry up. The government's solution was to revive it on a smaller scale, of which two parts have been revived. Most studies have reported a significant relationship between the drying up of the Aral Sea and various diseases, including respiratory diseases, types of cancer, fertility dangers, and mental and neurological disorders. Considering the environmental problems and the spread of various diseases among the inhabitants of the dried-up Aral Sea, the revival of Lake Urmia is more necessary than before. Moreover, Kazakhstan's successful experience in Aral restoration can be a model for the revival of Lake Urmia.

Knowledge of wildfire-prone areas is useful for identifying future challenges and formulating management strategies, therefore, monitoring and studying the behavior of this phenomenon can be effective in this regard. In this study, the areas affected by wildfires in Kermanshah province were obtained using the information related to the active fire of MODIS satellite during the years 2001 to 2022. Then, using the kernel density function, the density of fire occurrences for each year was calculated and the wildfire data was prepared in the form of density per square kilometer. Different density maps were entered into the non-parametric Mann-Kendall analysis in the form of a time series to calculate the trend of changes at a significance level of 95% or more (99%) with this method. According to the results, during the past 21 years, an area equal to 3613.31 square kilometers of the province's land has experienced an increase in the density of fires, and this amount is equal to 644.39 square kilometers for the decreasing trend. None of the protected areas of Kermanshah Province have a decreasing trend of wildfire density; however, areas from the north and northwest, west and east of the study area have an increasing trend of wildfire density. Most of the areas with an increasing trend of wildfires are located in high areas with high rainfall and are covered by Zagros forests. Among the protected areas, Shahu and Kohsalan as well as Buzin and Markhil have the most fluctuations and changes in wildfires density. The fact that a large part of these areas is covered by oak forests, drought, temperature increase, and the spread of intentional fires may be among the effective and important factors in this phenomenon. The fact that a large part of these areas is covered by oak forests may be among the effective and important factors in this phenomenon