Iran's most obvious hydroclimatic problems are compounded of the disadvantages of scanty and highly seasonal precipitation and a surface configuration which tends to concentrate moisture on the periphery of the country, leaving its vast heart an area of irreconcilable sterility. Most of the central Iran has arid conditions with dry and hot summer months, when streams with and the land is parched. Nowhere in Iran is there an annual surplus of water, and significant seasonal surpluses occur in only the wishbone of high mountains that encloses the central plateau on the north and west. In most parts (about 80 percent of the total of country) the nature of human activity depends upon the availability of surface water that can be tapped by wells and qantas. Runoff is episodic and occurs only because the precipitation, meagre as it is momentarily exceeds the infiltration capability of the surface. Such precipitation is not of course capricious in terms of quantity, location and distribution in time. For more accurate investigation, remote sensing data was used to overcome the large area. Finally for arid basins, combined data from remote sensing (Cosmos and Aerial photographs) data and topography maps provided significant results.

Date Published: 28 January 2002
PDF: 3 pages
Proc. SPIE 4542, Remote Sensing for Agriculture, Ecosystems, and Hydrology III, (28 January 2002); doi: 10.1117/12.454184

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 4542:
Remote Sensing for Agriculture, Ecosystems, and Hydrology III
Manfred Owe; Guido D'Urso, Editor(s)