Classification and regionalization of the forming environment of windblown sand disasters along the Tarim Desert Highway

Through the systematic field survey and observations, the factor quantification as well as setting the criteria, the sand disaster-forming environment along the Tarim Desert Highway can be divided into four grades by the classification and regionalization based on fuzzy mathematics. The length of the regions with significant sand disaster accounted for 37.1% of the total highway length. Particularly, the area along the Tarim Desert Highway, based on the sand disaster-forming environment classification as well as the difference in the five basic landform units along the highway, combined with the difference of wind regime, can be divided into five regions, in which the length of the regions suffering severe sand damage occupied 64.3% of the total highway length. In addition, the index of disaster formation grade along the highway decreased from north to south, showing a repeated spatial pattern in small length scales