ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a study based on the statistical analysis of meteorological observations from 400 meteorological stations for the period of 1936–2000 using Geographic Information Systems technologies to reveal the spatial distribution of dust storms over Middle Asia. In the narrow sense, Middle Asia is an area between the Caspian Sea in the west and the Pamir Mountains in the east, the Aral-Irtysh watershed in the north, and the Kopetdag-Hindukush Mountains in the south. One of the most distributed forms of land degradation in the Middle Asia is wind erosion leading to the development of dust storms. Dust storms are one of the most characteristic features of the region. The vast expanse and diverse desert types across Middle Asia generate dust storms of different frequencies, intensities and durations. Arc Map software was used as the main tool to analyse the spatial and temporal distributions of the dust storm events.
