Influence of dust extreme and mud adhesion on the power networks over southwest Iran: case study Ahvaz metropolitan

Abstract Changes in climate have a significant effect on dust extremes. Occurring dust extremes in humid ambient air simultaneously or successively can form wet mud deposition on the surface of urban areas. The mud deposition on the power network systems devices causes irreversible damage to the devices and significantly influences system performance and efficiency in southwest Iran. This often resulted in blackouts that have caused problems in the operation of urban infrastructure and people's daily activities for up to several days. In this study, the climatic conditions and risk assessment of mud formation were investigated in Ahvaz. Data on a diurnal and monthly timescale of dust and humidity relative used for assessing extreme dust and wet conditions and were taken from Ahvaz synoptic station over 11 years (2009-2019). The multivariate copula-based framework is used to calculate univariate and bivariate return periods of mud deposition hazard. The results imply that dust anomalies increase the probability of dust extreme coincidence with wet extreme and occurrence of wet mud hazards in the cold seasons of the year. In addition, limited adaptive capacity, shortage of information, and poor stakeholder coordination and cooperation caused the large-scale impact of wet mud hazard in Ahvaz. By considering only relative humidity data, the return period of the 2017 Ahvaz mud adhesion hazard, is approximately 12 to 43 years. If we consider only dust the return period of the 2017 Ahvaz mud adhesion hazard is estimated at 80 to 700 years. However, for both dust and relative humidity extreme, the joint return periods for TDR (Dust and Relative humidity) and T'DR (Dust or Relative humidity) are Respectively estimated greater than 200 and lower than 20 years.