Green cover and air quality are important components of life quality and human ecology in arid lands. In the Sonoran Desert of Mexico, Hermosillo is the largest city with a population of 710,000. This city is currently affected by dust pollution and a large part of its population suffers respiratory diseases. Moreover, Hermosillo is considered highly vulnerable to climate change. The objective of this work was to correlate socio-economic variables such as population density and unpaved cover to total suspended particles (TSP), daily temperature oscillation (DTO), and vegetation cover (VC) to establish priority zones for reforestation for the city government. We divided Hermosillo in 440 sampling areas corresponding to Basic Geostatistics Urban Areas (AGEB) as defined by Instituto Nacional de Estadística Geografía e Informática (INEGI). We estimated TSP and DTO for each AGEB by spatial interpolation using the splines with barriers from 3 and 7 sampling stations, respectively. We obtained population density for each AGEB from the 2010 Population and Housing Census by INEGI and percentage of unpaved cover for each AGEB from municipal government records. We mapped VC analyzing digital aerial ortho-photos (resolution 15 × 15 cm per pixel) using GIS and manual digitization. We estimated VC at the AGEB level by sampling. Average VC percentage for Hermosillo is 6.4%. We also found that VC is negatively associated with TSP and DTO, highlighting the importance of further increasing green cover to enhance urban life quality in arid lands. Population density (PD) and unpaved cover (UC) were also positively correlated to DTO and marginally with TSP. Our research approach at a local scale, using an accessible methodology and inexpensive data inputs, can be easily applied to other arid cities around the world. We produced a map of prioritization reforestation zones for Hermosillo.

绿色覆盖和空气质量是干旱地区生活质量和人类生态的重要组成部分。在墨西哥的索诺兰沙漠，埃莫西约是最大的城市，人口达71万。该城市目前受到粉尘污染的影响，其大部分人口患有呼吸系统疾病。此外，埃莫西约被认为极易受到气候变化的影响。这项工作的目的是将诸如人口密度和未铺设覆盖物等社会经济变量与总悬浮颗粒物（TSP），日温度波动（DTO）和植被覆盖物（VC）相关联，以建立市政府重新造林的优先区域。根据国家地理信息研究所（INEGI）的定义，我们将Hermosillo划分为440个采样区域，对应于基本地统计学城市区域（AGEB）。我们分别使用具有3个和7个采样站的障碍物的样条通过空间插值估计了每个AGEB的TSP和DTO。我们根据INEGI从2010年人口和住房普查中获得了每个AGEB的人口密度，并从市政府的记录中获得了每个AGEB的未铺砌覆盖率。我们使用GIS和手动数字化技术绘制了VC分析数字航拍照片（分辨率为15×15 cm /像素）。我们通过采样估算了AGEB级别的VC。Hermosillo的平均VC百分比为6.4％。我们还发现，VC与TSP和DTO负相关，突出了进一步增加绿化覆盖率以提高干旱地区城市生活质量的重要性。人口密度（PD）和未铺盖（UC）也与DTO正相关，与TSP略相关。我们在当地的研究方法，使用可访问的方法和廉价的数据输入，可以轻松地应用于世界其他干旱城市。我们为埃莫西约绘制了优先植树造林区的地图。