Computing the resilience of water resources, especially groundwater, has hitherto presented difficulties. This study highlights the calculation of the resilience of water resources in the small-scale Lali region, southwest Iran, to potential climate change in the base (1961–1990) and future (2021–2050) time periods under two Representative Concentration Pathways, i.e., RCP4.5 and RCP8.5. The Lali region is eminently suitable for comparing the resilience of alluvial groundwater (Pali aquifer), karst groundwater (Bibitarkhoun spring and the observation wells W1, W2 and W3) and surface water (Taraz-Harkesh stream). The log-normal distribution of the mean annual groundwater level and discharge rate of the water resources was initially calculated. Subsequently, different conditions from extremely dry to extremely wet were assigned to the different years for every water system. Finally, the resilience values of the water systems were quantified as a number between zero and one, such that they can be explicitly compared. The Pali alluvial aquifer demonstrated the maximum resilience, i.e., 1, to the future climate change. The Taraz-Harkesh stream, which is fed by the alluvial aquifer and the Bibitarkhoun karst spring, which is the largest spring of the Lali region, depicted average resilience of 0.79 and 0.59, respectively. Regarding the karstic observation wells, W1 being located in the recharge zone had the lowest resilience (i.e., 0.52), W3 being located in the discharge zone had the most resilience (i.e., 1) and W2 being located between W1 and W3 had an intermediate resilience (i.e., 0.60) to future climate change.
The main objective of this research was to evaluate the possible impact of climate change on groundwater levels in the Tasuj Plain, Iran. To accomplish this, the values of precipitation for a near future period was projected through four General Circulation Models (GCM). Then, the groundwater level variations through the Genetic Expression Programming (GEP) model were evaluated. The projection results indicated that the average annual precipitation with 33.55 mm in the base period would decline to 20.51 mm, 20.11 mm, and 19.14 mm under three Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) scenarios, namely RCP2.6, RCP4.5, RCP8.5, respectively. The values of the determination coefficient range from 0.92-0.99; the root mean square error between 0.12 and 0.61, and mean absolute error from 0.08 to 0.54 showed that in the forecasting of groundwater level through the GEP model, all models have acceptable results. The evaluation of groundwater level simulation demonstrated that the developed model through the precipitation and previous groundwater level performs better. Prediction of groundwater level for a future period based on climate change scenarios indicated that the average groundwater level in Tasuj Plain at the beginning of the period would experience a gradual reduction and would then increase very slightly to the end of the period. Overall, it was found that the declining precipitation under climate change has no significant impacts on the groundwater level in the Tasuj Plain, and other parameters like anthropogenic activities could be the primary reason for groundwater depletion.
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