IRANIAN JOURNAL OF ECOHYDROLOGY
Year:2019 | Volume:6 | Issue:2 |Papers Count:19

Integrated management of water resources of the country is a very important violation of Iran's sustainable development process in areas such as economic growth, food security, sustainable development of water resources and the preservation of human environments. On the other hand, many of the environmental threats, destruction of water resources and pollution are the result of activities that are not in accordance with the environment. Therefore, in this study, the fuzzy hierarchy process analysis technique was used to determine the priority of the water resources of the dam in the hill with the economic and environmental management approaches in the year 2015-2016. According to the results, based on the economic approach, the agricultural sector with the highest weight was ranked first. The weight of agricultural sector was 0. 72. In the environmental approach, the environmental sector was considered as a superior option with a weight of 0. 65 and the agricultural and drinking sector respectively with a weight of 0. 19 and 0. 16 in the second and third priority respectively. Therefore, it is suggested that, given the livelihood situation in the study area and the priority of the agricultural sector in the managerial (especially economic) approach, officials and state officials in the water sector should pay particular attention to this area.

Optimal operation of reservoirs is one of the most important issues in water resources management. In the present study after introducing Whale Optimization Algorithm (WOA), the performance of this algorithm is evaluated separately and in the hybrid with the Genetic Algorithm (hybrid WOA-GA) in the optimal operation problem of Salman Farsi dam reservoir. In the present optimization problem, the objective function is defined as minimizing the total deficit during the operation period. Also, the constraints of the reservoir continuity equation, reservoir storage volume and released volume from the reservoir have been applied to the objective function of the problem. The Performance of proposed algorithms is compared with the performance of the Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Non-Linear Programming (NLP). The performance of models has been evaluated based on Reliability, reversibility, vulnerability and stability criteria. The results of optimal solutions showed that the absolute optimum is equal to 0. 181 based on NLP method and using Lingo software and the optimal solutions for the models of the hybrid WOA-GA, GA and WOA with 2. 9, 24. 2 and 337 percent increase compared to the absolute optimum are ranked first to third respectively. A Multi-Criteria Decision-Making technique (MCDM) has been used to select the best model based on the objective function and evaluation criteria of the models' performance. The results of this technique showed that the performance of the hybrid WOA-Ga model is ranked first, and the models of NLP, GA and WOA are in the next ranks, respectively.

Astragalus kahiricus is a high quality forage species that has a wide spread in the northeast, north, center, southeast and central part of the Iran. This palatable plant is heavily grazed in all phonological stages by livestock. In this study the effect of rainwater harvesting methods including furrow, pitting and crescent pond and planting season on establishment of A. kahiricus in Kalmand bahadoran were evaluated. The seeds were scratched in vitro according to germination studies. The scratched seeds were compared as split plot design with main treatment of cultivation date in autumn and late winter 2013 and sub treatment of pitting, furrow, crescent pond in three blocks. In the spring, the number of established plant in each plot was counted and analyzed. Based on the results autumn planting been more successful than spring planting. Although 18% of the seedlings were generated in the crescent pond and there were better results than the other treatments, but only 4% of the seeds were established due to drought. Generally low seed establishment suggests that rainfall collecting with seeding in regions with average rainfall less than 100 mm encounters with a high risk. In these areas should be evaluated methods of potted seedlings combined with rainwater harvesting.

The purpose of this study was to compare the different baseflow extraction methods based on the five hydrometric stations data during 2001-2011 located in the west of Lake Urmia. For this purpose, Fixed Interval Method, Sliding Interval Method, Local Minimum, Lyne and Hollick algorithm with four numerical filters and Eckhardt algorithm with two numerical filters were used. Then, baseflow index values were analyzed by the absolute mean error, flow correlation and root mean squares. The results revealed that the average annual index for all stations in the whole period fluctuated between 74. 5 and 89. 8. So, this value is indicating the high contribution of subsurface flow in supplying of the river flow in the study region. As a result, the method of Lyne and Hollick algorithm with a numerical filter of 0. 9 and, besides it, Eckhart with the filter of 0. 9 is the most suitable methods and can be useful in the absence of tracing with chemicals to extract the base flow in the study area. After choosing the best method, the base flow at the Band, Babaroud and Tapik stations were calculated using longterm flow data and dam and agricultural consumptions impact on baseflow also discussed. The annual trend of Band station's baseflow was then evaluated using Mann-Kendall test. The results of the trend analysis indicate that the baseflow of this station has a severe downward trend.

Hyporheic exchange has a crucial effect in ecology and hydrology cycle. Hyporheic flows are highly influenced by stream morphologies like Middle-gravel bars. In this study, flows around a three dimensional symmetric middle gravel bar) 2 m length, 0. 64 m width and 0. 1 meter height) were investigated. To consider the submergence effect, the experiments were conducted in partial and fully submerged cases. Flow and pressure patterns around middle bar were simulated by a CFD model, then the computed pressure along the bed were assigned as a top boundary condition to simulate the three dimensional subsurface flow using groundwater model. The results showed that dimensionless index of exchange flow decreased by increasing surface flow and have a good linear correlation with Reynolds number in porous media of the bar. The ratio of exchange flow to surface flow was 3. 5 to 7. 5 percents. Spatial expansion of flow paths increased by increasing discharge and in partial submerged cases, flow paths extended like two dimensional pool-riffles and dunes laterally. Residence time and length of Path lines were log normally distributed which tends to symmetric form by increasing discharge. Dimensionless median residence time is decreased by increasing discharge and ranged from 0. 004 to 0. 01.

Utilizing hydrological models allows for the correct and sustainable planning of water resources management. In this research, with the aim of simulating the flow of the Aland watershed (located in the Aras river basin) as a watershed under the influence of human activities, the WEAP model was developed, calibrated and validated. For this purpose, an 11-year statistical period (2001 to 2011) was used to calibrate and a five-year period (2011 to 2016) was used to validate the model. The model simulation results at the basin outlet showed statistical indices of the coefficient of determination and Nash-Sutcliffe Efficiency (NSE) were 0. 96 and 0. 85, in the calibration period, respectively, and during the validation period there were 0. 79 and 0. 78, respectively. These results indicate the good performance of the WEAP model in simulating hydrologic behavior, including rainfall-runoff, base flow, groundwater and other components of the water balance of the Aland watershed. In this research, the simulation results of drinking water supply scenario from the Agh Chay Dam indicate a reduction in groundwater level drop and an increase in the volume of aquifer at an annual rate of 5. 4 million cubic meters.

Climate change and land use can greatly affect soil erosion and the ability of the soil to maintain agriculture, and in turn could affect regional or global food security. The purpose of this study was to assess the effect of climate change and land use change on erosion using the RUSLE model. Therefore, climate change is based on two scenarios of climate change, RCP2. 6 and RCP8. 5 using the statistical model For the period 2015-2030 and 2050-2050. The LCM model was used to predict land use changes in the Kondran watershed. Also, the RUSLE model was used to assess the soil erosion in the base period (1986-2015) and in simulated courses (2016-2030 and 2031-2050) under the influence of climate change scenarios. The results showed that rainfall erosion and factor C in the RUSLE model are directly affected by climate change and land use change and vegetation cover. So that, R-factor will increase from 83. 7 in basis period to 83. 7 MJ mm ha-1 h-1 y-1 in 2016-2030 and 82. 3 in 2031-2050. Also, C-factor will increase from 0. 225 in basisi period to 0. 43 during 2016-2030 and 0. 56 during 2031-2050. The average soil erosion was 9. 8 (ton/ha/year) during the base period, which in durint 2016-2030, using the two scenarios examined, averagely 11. 37 ton/ha/year will increase and during 2031-2050 will increase to 10. 3 ton/ha/year.

Each of the various uses of water, such as agriculture, drinking, industry, etc., require water with a specific quality that is characterized by repeated sampling, testing, and analysis of the results. However, the cost of sampling surface water, measuring quality parameters in the laboratory environment, human errors are the most important problems in estimating the concentration of water qualitative parameters. For this purpose, there are several methods for modeling the water quality parameters. In this regard, the data mining methods have been considered by the researchers in recent decades. Therefore, in this research, the main purpose is to estimating and modeling water quality parameters using modern data mining methods and improve the performance of data mining methods with the aim of wavelet theory and compare them with other commonly used data mining methods. In other words, extreme learning machines (ELM) and multi-layer perceptron (MLP) method will be used to model water quality parameters. The evaluation of these two models was performed by statistical criteria Correlation Coefficient (R), root mean square error (RMSE) and mean absolute error (MAE) and relative standard error (RSE) for statistical data of 20 years. According to the results, it was found that the ELM method has been able to averagely provide a correlation coefficient of 0. 97. Although both models yielded acceptable results, the results showed that the ELM model has higher accuracy than the MLP model for prediction of water quality parameters.

Water demand is one of the main components of decision making to manage resources, watersheds and phenomena such as droughts. Therefore, recognizing water capacities and demand for water are the main components of decision making for management of water resources and phenomena such as drought. The management of surface water resources and dangers in the country continues to face a lack of a system that supports decision-makers in making timely and correct decisions. In order to establish such a system, it is necessary to consider and evaluate the basic steps in identifying the subject and the country's data capacities. Considering that runoff simulation is one of the most important hydrological researches in water engineering sciences. Therefore, in this study, the simulation of the hydrologic processes of the basin, located in the dry area of Khorasan Razavi province, has been studied using the "Precipitation Index" (API), which estimates the threshold of runoff using the rainfall and trap simulator. The previous rainfall index was calculated and then the results were compared between the two indexes with the previous days 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 days with the flood waters of the basin. The results of this study showed that the pre-rainfall index with runoff in the catchment area had the most differences between days 20 and 30 with a difference of 4% explanation coefficient. Finally, the highest correlation between the previous rainfall index and runoff is on day one, with an explanatory factor of 56%.

In this research, the performance of the SDSM in downscaling of three variables including precipitation, minimum temperature, and maximum temperature in Gorgan-roud River Basin was examined. Screening the predictor variables was done using a quantitative approach. Considering the efficiency of the SDSM to downscale the CanESM2 outputs at the scale of Gorgan-roud River Basin, the model was used to downscale the mentioned variables under two scenarios of RCP2. 6 and RCP8. 5 for three time periods of 2006-2040, 2041-2070, and 2071-2100. Also, the trend of mentioned changes was examined for the period of 2006-2040. Based on the results, under two scenarios, amount of precipitation will show an increase in the stations of Tamer, Cheshme Khan, Bahlake Dashli, and Ghafar Haji for the three time periods In contrast, precipitation will decrease for the stations of Gorgan and Arazkouse. In addition, amount of minimum temperature will increase during the explored time periods under two scenarios for the stations of Gorgan, Cheshme Khan, and Arazkouse (except in the period of 2071-2100 under RCP8. 5) and will show a reduction for the stations of Tamer, Bahlake Dashli, and Ghafar Haji. Amount of maximum temperature during all three time periods and under two scenarios will increase in the stations of Gorgan, Tamer, Cheshme Khan and Arazkouse and will decrease in the stations of Bahlake Dashli and Ghafar Haji. In general, a single direction in the change of the climate variables cannot be projected across all stations investigated.

In this study, the EPA-SWMM model was used to simulate the flood-induced rainfall 6 hour showers with a return period of 2, 5 and 10 years and for 12 hours. The results indicate that some of the network parts that contain a number of nodes and ducts leading to critical paths showed that due to the large volume of flow in some areas there is no ability to run runoff in existing conditions, Which is the main cause of flooding, the smallness of the cross section of the ducts, as well as the low slope in some of the gorges. In this study, in order to validate the model, 5 rainfall events were used and runoff speed was calculated. The model's performance indicators in this research include Nash-Sutcliff, error square root and bias. The results of calibration of the model showed that there is a good agreement between simulated and observational data and indicates the high accuracy of the model for this area, so that the amount of NS (NS) for precipitation events is 0. 88, 0. 71, 0. 89, 0. 74 and 0. 77, and it has been determined that the cause of flooding in some channels and channels is due to lack of sufficient capacity of the channels. Based on the above results, in general, this model can be used in appropriate design and evaluation of the system Municipalities used urban drainage networks.

Miandoab Plain is part of the Urmia Lake basin, which has significantly reduced the quantity and quality of its water resources in recent years. Groundwater vulnerability assessments provide a useful method for analyzing the sensitivity of aquifer to the contaminant. The purpose of this study was determining the vulnerability of the aquifer using AVI, GODS, DRASTIC and modified DRASTIC models so that the vulnerability potential to pollution can be determined more exactly. In this study, the data and information provided by the Regional Water Company of East Azarbaijan were used to provide layers needed for the preparation of each vulnerability model in the ArcGIS software. The new rates of modified DRASTIC model calculated using a correlation between each parameter and the nitrate concentration obtained from the analysis of 16 water samples taken in July 2016. The final mapping of the vulnerability maps was also verified by nitrate values. Also, validation of the final vulnerability maps was done with nitrate values. The coefficients of determined values between the nitrate concentration and vulnerability models of AVI, GODS, DRASTIC and modified DRASTIC were estimated to be 0. 004, 0. 13, 0. 18, and 0. 33, respectively. The results showed that after calibrating the model with the nitrate data, it is the best model for assessing the vulnerability of Aquifer. Based on this, it was observed that the most vulnerable groundwater pollution is in the northeast and parts of the west of the plain and the least vulnerable in the southern and southeastern parts of the plain.

The correct estimation of reference evapotranspiration (ET0) is considered in order to accurately monitor the water requirement of crops and water balance in large scale irrigation and drainage plans. The present study aim to evaluation of spatial and temporal of twenty-four different methods to predict ET0 based on air temperature, solar radiation and mass transfer models, in 11 stations of Khuzestan province in Iran (1996-2005). The results were compared with the result of the FAO Penman – Monteith method (PMF-56) with use of statistical indices: R2, RMSE and PBIAS. Also the best map of each category was provided in the ArcGIS software. The results showed that, the methods have different performance in different seasons, but the performance of the models at most in the methods is satisfactory, this can be due to the same climate type and geographic location. Also according to the annual results, among the methods based on air temperature, Blaney and Criddle methods with R2=0. 92 and RMSE=2. 9 and Hargreaves and Samani methods with R2=0. 91 and RMSE=2. 2, among the methods based on solar radiation, Doorenbos and Pruitt methods with R2=0. 93 and RMSE=3. 0 and among the methods based on mass transfer, WMO method with R2=0. 97 and RMSE=5. 0, had the best performance to predict reference evapotranspiration comparing with PMF-56 in Khuzestan province. Finally, according to the annual, results the based on air temperature methods were the most accurate in Khuzestan province. It is notably, temporarily, summer season was the least accuracy in all methods of temperature, radiation and mass transfer.

The study of climatic indices with relation to the meteorological data is one of the effective factors in decision making of climate, agriculture, water resource engineering planning and determination of management strategies. The aim of this research is improvement of climatic indices-crop yield modeling with emphases on the model inputs based on the clustering analysis. Data derived from clusters of climatic indices was conducted with mean calculation of each cluster. The investigated indices were 11 climatic indices (Lang, De Martonne, Koppen 1, Koppen 2, Koppen 3, Angstrom, Ivanov, Selyaninov, PEI, VCI and aridity). Simple regression and artificial neural networks were used as modeling of climatic indices-wheat yield in Gilan, Esfahan, Kermanshah and West Azerbaijan provinces. The modified indices with correct structure led to increase of accuracy in crop yield estimation, for example the agreement index of Kermanshah province was increased 12. 82% from De Martonne to Koppen 2 index. RMSE related to crop yield eastimatiom using climatic indices compared to the direct use of meteorological data in all provinces decreased 36. 66%. The clustering analysis regard to the models input determination increased the models accuracy (Average RMSE of all provinces with clustering=0. 7 and without clustering= 1. 15, Average RRMSE with clustering=0. 29 without clustering= 0. 5). Therefore, the synthesize of climatic indices as the model input with proper analysis led to improvement of crop yield modeling.

About 6 percent of Iran's electricity generation is directly from renewable energy sources such as power plants. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of changes in the water supply pattern in the overall management of reservoirs and flow in dams and electricity supplied to the circuit during the study period. In general, Iran is able to produce power even in low water conditions. Therefore, the statistical society of Iran's economic research has been considered and an example of data on energy production of hydropower plants and data on the amount of water supply intermediate consumption data from 1979 to 2016 was compiled to study the effect of water consumption on energy production in Iran. On this basis, it can be said that what comes from the use of water in energy supply. The results showed that under the Zero transition mode, a moderate autoregressive model, if the efficiency of water consumption in Iranian hydropower production is less than 8. 86, this reduction in production power up to 7. 022 times can be reduced and if the water supply Mild transfer from optimum supply of water can be transferred to a limited extent, based on a moderate 8. 8-fold transmission at high speeds and an increasing coefficient of hydropower production of up to 7. 038.

The main target of this investigation is to propose an alternative renewable hybrid system with Besat steam power plant.Since water shortage and greenhouse gas emissions are one of the most important environmental concerns,Fossil fuel power plants have a high amount of water consumption and carbon dioxide emissions.First,the Besat steam power plant is introduced,and types of the costs including water cost,and external cost of carbon dioxide,which are associated with this power plant,are calculated.In continue,by applying HOMER software and solar and wind atlases of Iran,several hybrid energy systems which can provide the generated power of Besat power plant,are proposed.Amongst the proposed systems,the hybrid wind/PV/battery/hydropower is selected as the most optimum configuration.The results illustrate by utilizing this hybrid system,the water consumption and CO2 emissions reduce with the values of 4429 m3 and 1.43 million tons,respectively.Based on the economic analysis,the external cost of CO2 emissions decreases by 35375043$.Also,this hybrid system has a cost of energy of 0.0815$,and net present cost of 5.673 million $.

The phenomenon of climate change as a threat to sustainable management has had the greatest impact on the increase in carbon dioxide production. Iran is considering the ninth place of carbon dioxide production in order to reduce emissions. Fars Province, with the first rank of water consumption and agricultural production in the country, has the highest production of carbon dioxide in agriculture through water pumping. The six scenarios in solution using solar pumps or replacing diesel pumps with electric pumps connected to the network, the changes in carbon dioxide were studied. In order to determine the amount of contamination, the results of relevant research were used based on the life cycle assessment method. Comparison of electric pumps connected to the network with diesel pumps results in a reduction of emissions of 8% and an increasing the cost of up to 26. 7% due to higher efficiency. The use of solar power, despite less pollution by 16. 6%, leads to a higher cost of 74. 4%. By reviewing the price of energy carriers in Iran and comparing it with the countries of the region, including Turkey, the second three scenarios were examined. Therefore, the economic justification for using grid electricity was more intense than using diesel fuel, but it showed a smaller difference in electric power consumption by using grid electricity.

This research is on planning Siah Bisheh pump storage power plant with the aim of maintaining water in the cycle by protecting water resources. The effect of planning Siah Bisheh pump storage power plant on the demand of the country’ s electricity consumption has been investigated. Considering the technical, economical, and environmental benefits of renewable resources, the effect of the installation of solar and wind power plants (hybrid with pump storage power plant) on the performance of the Siah Bisheh power plant and national electricity charge has been investigated. The results indicate that the Siah Bisheh power plant's planning as a hybrid with both renewable and normal resources has the ability to reduce the annual gas load of 1 gigawatts. Also in the worst case scenario, the Siah Bisheh pumping storage power plant has the ability to reduce the mountly peak charge. During 4 hours, 3, 481, 920 cubic meters of water are transferred from the upstream dam to the downstream dam to produce power and in 5 hours this water is pumped to the upstream dam again. By installing wind, solar, and wind-solar power plants, respectively, 451. 140 thousand tons, 328. 929 thousand tons and 780. 069 thousand tons reduces emissions of carbon dioxide equivalent. Also, the installation of wind resources for this study reduced the primary energy consumption by 158. 658 thousand tonnes of oil equivalent. Installing solar resources also reduced 115. 677 thousand tonnes of oil equivalents and simultaneous installation of solar and wind resources reduced the equivalent of 274. 335 thousand tonnes of oil.

The frequency and severity of floods has increased globally. However, in many parts of the world, especially in developing countries, there is no accurate data for estimating the probable of flood risk. In this research, flood risk zonation has been done for delineation of flood fringe in Gamasiyab River (south of the Sahneh city, east of the Kermanshah province). The simulation of the flood has been carried out based on the HEC-RAS (one-dimensional hydrodynamic model), and the geometric data has been processed in the GIS by the HEC-GEORAS extension. Also peak discharge in diffrence return periods has been calculated using SMADA software by Type III Pearson distribution. The study area has been divided to four reaches based on river patterns and then manning's roughness coefficient has been calculated for each reach. The results show that 23. 78 km2 and 42. 1 km2 of the river floodplain have been inundated by 25-year and 100-year return periods respectively, so that amount of damage from the 100-year flood was higher than the 25-year flood. Also the width of inundation area in the reaches 2, 3 and 4 indicated that 25-year return period was not good criteria for flood fringe. It is necessary to study the other features of the river, including bed morphology, river depth and river pattern.