Sand and dust storms (SDS) are a natural phenomenon dominantly originating in arid and semi-arid regions. The vastness and changing distribution of the SDS hotspots, their inaccessibility, and financial limitations are the greatest challenges to projects combating SDS. To boost project success, a prioritized site-selection method which incorporates the physical and human variables interacting with SDS is applied in this paper. This ensures that potential economic and health impacts of SDS on human populations are also included. Six variables were selected for analysis: within-region sand and dust hotspots, changing distribution of the hotspots, residential areas, vegetation cover, soil texture, and the maximum drought-inundation of the Hamoun wetland. SDS hotspot sites for possible stabilization were identified and prioritized using the multi criteria evaluation (MCE) method. Such prioritization assists the practical management of hotspots under conditions of resource and budgetary constraints which are especially common in developing countries. This paper thus provides a template for site selection and prioritization of SDS hotspots for remediation. It also highlights the importance of variables other than SDS source areas for selection of rehabilitation sites. The proposed method, using the Sistan region as an example, is applicable to other regions of the world as a means of reducing the negative effects of known dust storm hotspots.

Natural area tourism may contribute to deterioration in biophysical environments important for sustainable conservation of biodiversity and/or historically significant sites. Levels of protection within the IUCN guidelines provide general descriptors of desirable outcomes, and the Limits of Acceptable Change (LAC) management tool has often been implicitly applied. This article presents an initial attempt to assess the value of Thresholds of Potential Concern (TPC) relative to LAC as management frameworks for protected areas, using the example of trail width as an indicator of visitor impacts on vegetation, soil, water and, potentially, visitor safety. Visitor preferences relating to trail width were incorporated when applying the TPC and LAC principles. Sections of three walking trails in a high-visitation national park near Sydney, Australia, were measured at ~10.7 m intervals: the mean trail widths were 1.6 m, 1.8 m and 2.14 m. Of the 115 recreationists surveyed, 16% of those having the greatest tolerance towards management interventions (‘Non-purist’ wilderness category) viewed a trail ≥ 2 m wide as acceptable, but 96% of ‘Purists’ nominated a maximum of ≤1.5 m. The TPC was found to provide a broad strategy for identification, assessment and grading of multiple biophysical thresholds within an ecological framework. Combined with stakeholder information, the TPC allows for timely, proactive and calibrated management responses to maintaining biophysical and social sustainability.