سازمان منابع طبیعی و آبخیزداری کشور

Head of FRWO said that annual occurrence of sand and dust storm (SDS) which are caused by wind erosion reaches 20 tons in our country.

According to FRWO’s website, Dr. Massoud Mansour at the fifth national commemoration ceremony of natural resources and forest ranger victims held at FRWO Headquarters on Tuesday, pointed out that currently about 125 million hectares of the national territory are prone to water erosion and 30 million hectares are prone to wind erosion of which some parts are hot spots and high risk areas. There are nearly 8200 villages and 400 cities with the highest flood risk in our country, and soil erosion reaches 16 tons per hectare in the country annually".

In another part of his speech, Head of FRWO stating that there is between 10 and 20 centimeters of land subsidence per year, reiterated: "Iran is an arid and semi-arid country, located in the southern part of the northern hemisphere on the arid belt of the world and on the whole, Iran is categorized as a low forest cover country. Iran experiences water evaporation 30 percent more than global average."

He said that 380 plains in Iran are banned and noted: "FRWO can reduce the existing threats in the country by implementing several projects, for example, each hectare of forest generates two and a half tons of oxygen and increases the penetration of water by 250 and 500 mm. Based on the estimates, the implementation of watershed management and aquifer management is able to store about 311 million cubic meters of water and reduce seven tons of soil erosion by wind annually and reduce annual flood damages by up to 70%."