Sand encroachment into urban areas represents a high risk factor for transportation infrastructure and urban development in the United Arab Emirates. The UAE is located in one of the world’s largest arid regions with a strong prevalence of sand movement and encroachment into urban areas, particularly in the last few years. The objective of this research is to develop a land surface process platform that models sand movements and further generates an encroachment risk index map of potential encroachment risk areas season-wise in the UAE.
In this study, we have developed sand movement models for the surfaces in UAE. This was produced according to the factors like wind speed, temperature, precipitation, vegetation and surface roughness of the study area to identify and produce the map i.e. high, medium, and low-risk sand movement areas. The significance of this study shows that during summer season UAE witnessed the high sand encroachment. About 30% of the total area is found high sand encroachment in the months of January, April, July, and October to reflect the four seasons of winter, spring, extreme summer, and warm summer respectively. The results of this research found that during the month of July when temperature is high and vegetation is reduced the risk index reaches its highest level of 30% higher compared to the risk during the winter season in January. This is due to the fact during such extremely high temperature, in the summer the study area is not suitable for any agricultural practices.
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