Haze Storms in Iran: Analyzing Challenges and Providing Management Solutions

With the expansion of the urban population and uncontrolled growth of industries in urban areas, large cities face environmental problems especially air pollution. In Iran, with the growing industrialization process, this problem has become more severe recently. Ravages of war in the Middle East and subsequent widespread bombing in Iraq territory, failure to address watershed management in Middle-Eastern and reducing precipitation has caused the haze problem in Middle East countries including Iran. It is necessary that environmental organizations as the responsible authority of this subject, start developing coherent and realistic strategies and implementing relevant regulatory frameworks. In this paper, we first examine the causes and magnitude of dust storms and its significant impact on the regional and local environment conditions have been discussed. Then approaches and tools for air quality management, including monitoring and sampling haze storms, satellite images (MODIS and EUMETSAT) and numerical models (HYSPLIT, SKIRON and AEMET) will be discussed.